Examples of artificial languages. Artificial languages ​​and their meaning

The sails are part of the ancient constellation Ship Argo. The southern part of the constellation is located in the most star-filled regions of the Milky Way, so it sparkles brightly in the night sky.

With the naked eye, about a hundred stars can be seen in the constellation. As a result of the division of the Ship Argo into three constellations at the initiative of Lacaille in 1752, there were no α and β stars in the Sails. Therefore, the brightest luminaries of the constellation were γ (Regor), δ, λ (Al Suhail).

On the border of the Sails is the asterism False Cross, which is often mistaken for the constellation of the Southern Cross. Unlike the real one, the false cross is not directed to the south pole of the world, but points in a completely different direction.

The binary star γ Parusov is clearly visible through binoculars, the components having the brightness of the 2nd and 4th magnitudes are separated by a distance of 40 arc seconds. In this case, the main component of the pair is itself a close binary system in which two stars are adjacent. One very hot other is a Wolf-Rayet type star. The masses of the stars are respectively 38 and 20 solar masses. The orbital period of the pair is 78.5 days.

The smaller star is losing matter from its surface at a high rate. For the first time stars of this type were described in 1867 by French astronomers Charles Wolf (1827-1918) and Georges Rayet (1839-1906). The spectrum of this star shows broad multi-colored lines against a fairly bright continuous background. Astronomers call this star the “spectral pearl of the southern sky.”

The planetary nebula NGC 3132, located on the border with, is similar to, in Lira. However, it is noticeably brighter than the "Ring", and secondly, its central star is much brighter, which without

difficult to see with a small telescope. The glow of the nebula itself is excited by another star, its small companion with a surface temperature of about 100,000°K.

In Sails there is one of the most unusual objects of optical astronomy - a neutron star-pulsar Vela blinking at a frequency of 11 pulses per second.

This is an optical pulsar discovered in 1977, 10 years after the first one discovered in the Crab Nebula (the constellation of Taurus).

Both of them are also radio pulsars, emitting radio waves into outer space. Only the youngest pulsars exhibit optical outbursts.

Vela was formed as a result of a supernova explosion that exploded in Parus about 12,000 years ago, leaving behind a rapidly rotating neutron star with a gaseous envelope flying in all directions from it. Its diameter today has already reached 6 degrees. This very beautiful openwork structure lies on the galactic equator, between the stars γ and λ Parus.

: for or against


suit́ natural languagé to- a sign system created specifically for use in areas where the use of natural language is less effective or impossible. Constructed languages ​​differ in their specialization and purpose, as well as in the degree of similarity with natural languages.

There are the following types of artificial languages:

Programming languages ​​and computer languages ​​- languages ​​for automatic processing of information using a computer.

Information languages ​​are languages ​​used in various information processing systems.

Formalized languages ​​of science are languages ​​intended for symbolic recording of scientific facts and theories of mathematics, logic, chemistry and other sciences.

Languages ​​of non-existent peoples created for fiction or entertainment purposes. The most famous are: the Elvish language, invented by J. Tolkien, and the Klingon language, invented by Mark Okrand for the fantasy series Star Trek (see Fictional Languages).

International auxiliary languages ​​are languages ​​created from elements of natural languages ​​and offered as an auxiliary means of interethnic communication.

According to the purpose of creation, artificial languages ​​can be divided into the following groups:

Philosophical and logical languages ​​are languages ​​that have a clear logical structure of word formation and syntax: Lojban, Tokipona, Ithkuil, Ilaksh.

Auxiliary languages ​​- designed for practical communication: Esperanto, Interlingua, Slovio, Slavonic.

artificial language natural specialization

Artistic or aesthetic languages ​​- created for creative and aesthetic pleasure: Quenya.

Also, the language is created to set up an experiment, for example, to test the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (that the language spoken by a person limits consciousness, drives it into certain limits).

According to their structure, artificial language projects can be divided into the following groups:

A priori languages ​​- based on logical or empirical classifications of concepts: loglan, lojban, ro, solresol, ifkuil, ilaksh.

A posteriori languages ​​- languages ​​built mainly on the basis of international vocabulary: interlingua, occidental

Mixed languages ​​- words and word formation are partially borrowed from non-artificial languages, partially created on the basis of artificially invented words and word-formation elements: Volapuk, Ido, Esperanto, Neo.

Of the artificial languages, the most famous:

basic english

interlingua

latin-blue-flexione

occidental

Simlian

solresol

Esperanto

The most famous artificial language was Esperanto (L. Zamenhof, 1887) - the only artificial language that has become widespread and has united quite a few supporters of the international language around itself. Esperanto is based on international words borrowed from Latin and Greek, and 16 grammatical rules that have no exceptions. In this language, there is no grammatical gender, it has only two cases - nominative and accusative, and the meanings of the rest are conveyed using prepositions. The alphabet is built on the basis of Latin. All this makes Esperanto such a simple language that an unprepared person can become fluent enough in a few months of regular practice. It takes at least a few years to learn any of the natural languages ​​at the same level. Currently, Esperanto is actively used, according to various estimates, from several tens of thousands to several million people. At the same time, it is believed that for ~ 500-1000 people this language is native, that is, studied from the moment of birth. Esperanto has descendant languages ​​that lack some of the shortcomings of Esperanto. The most famous among these languages ​​are Esperantido and Novial. However, none of them will be as widespread as Esperanto.


For or against artificial languages?


The study of an artificial language has one big drawback - the almost impossibility of its application in life. This is true. An article entitled "Artificial Languages" published in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia states that: "The idea of ​​an artificial language common to all mankind is in itself utopian and impracticable. Artificial languages ​​are only imperfect surrogates of living languages; their projects are cosmopolitan in nature and therefore vicious in principle." It was written in the early 50s. But even in the mid-1960s, the same skepticism was characteristic of some scientists.

The author of the book "Principles of Language Modeling" P.N. Denisov expressed his disbelief in the possibility of implementing the idea of ​​a universal language in the following way: “As for the possibility of declaring the transition of mankind to a single language created at least according to the type of Esperanto, such a possibility is a utopia. the inseparable connection of language with thought and society, and many other purely linguistic circumstances do not allow such a reform to be carried out without disorganizing society.

The author of the book "Sounds and Signs" A.M. Kondratov believes that all existing native languages ​​can never be replaced by "any artificially invented "general" language". He still admits the idea of ​​an auxiliary language: "We can only talk about an intermediary language, which is used only when talking with foreigners - and only"

Such statements seem to stem from the fact that none of the individual projects for a universal, or worldwide international, language has become a living language. But what turned out to be impossible in some historical conditions for individual idealists and groups of the same idealists cut off from the proletariat, from the masses of the people, may turn out to be quite possible in other historical conditions for scientific collectives and the masses of the people who have mastered the scientific theory of language creation - with support of revolutionary parties and governments. The ability of a person to multilingualism - this phenomenon of linguistic compatibility - and the absolute primacy of the synchrony of the language (for the consciousness of those who use it), which determines the absence of the influence of the origin of the language on its functioning, open before all the peoples and peoples of the Earth the way in which the problem of their linguistic community. This will give a real opportunity to the most perfect project of the language of the new mankind and its new civilization to turn on all the continents and islands of the globe into a living, controlled developing language. And there is no doubt that it will not only be alive, but also the most tenacious of languages. The needs that brought them to life are manifold. It is also important that in these languages ​​the ambiguity of terms, which is characteristic of natural languages ​​and unacceptable in science, has been overcome. Artificial languages ​​allow expressing certain concepts in an extremely concise form, perform the functions of a kind of scientific shorthand, economical presentation and expression of voluminous mental material. Finally, artificial languages ​​are one of the means of internationalizing science, since artificial languages ​​are unified, international.

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STATE EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION OF HIGHER PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION

"FINANCIAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL ACADEMY"

Department "IO-01"

in the discipline "Russian language and culture of speech"

Artificial languages ​​and their classification

Teacher: Sirova T.O.

Completed by: Mikhailova A.S.

Korolev, 2013

There are the following types of artificial languages:

    Programming languages ​​and computer languages- languages ​​for automatic processing of information with the help of a computer.

    Information languages- languages ​​used in various information processing systems.

    Formalized languages ​​of science- languages ​​intended for symbolic recording of scientific facts and theories of mathematics, logic, chemistry and other sciences.

    Languages ​​of non-existent peoples, created for fiction or entertainment purposes, for example: the Elvish language invented by J. Tolkien, the Klingon language invented by Mark Okrand for a fantasy series "Star Trek", Na "vi language, created for the film" Avatar.

    International auxiliary languages- languages ​​created from elements of natural languages ​​and offered as an auxiliary means of interethnic communication.

The idea of ​​creating a new language of international communication originated in the 17th-18th centuries as a result of the gradual decrease in the international role of Latin. Initially, these were mainly projects of a rational language, freed from the logical errors of living languages ​​and based on a logical classification of concepts. Later, projects appear based on the model and materials of living languages. The first such project was universalglot, published in 1868 in Paris by Jean Pirro. Pirro's project, which anticipated many details of later projects, went unnoticed by the public.

The next international language project was Volapuk, created in 1880 by the German linguist I. Schleyer. He caused a very big resonance in society.

The most famous artificial language is Esperanto (L. Zamenhof, 1887) is the only artificial language that has become widespread and has united quite a few supporters of the international language around itself.

Of the artificial languages, the most famous are:

    Basic English

  • Interlingua

    Latin blue flexione

  • Occidental

    Simli language

    Solresol

    Esperanto

  • Klingon language

    Elvish languages

There are also languages ​​that were specifically designed to communicate with extraterrestrial intelligence. For example - lincos.

According to the purpose of creation, artificial languages ​​can be divided into the following groups:

    philosophical and logical languages- languages ​​that have a clear logical structure of word formation and syntax: Lojban, Tokipona, Ithkuil, Ilaksh.

    Auxiliary languages- designed for practical communication: Esperanto, Interlingua, Slovio, Slovian.

    Artistic or aesthetic languages- created for creative and aesthetic pleasure: Quenya.

    Also, the language is created to set up an experiment, for example, to test the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (that the language spoken by a person limits consciousness, drives it into certain limits).

According to their structure, artificial language projects can be divided into the following groups:

    A priori languages- based on logical or empirical classifications of concepts: loglan, lojban, ro, solresol, ifkuil, ilaksh.

    A posteriori languages- languages ​​built mainly on the basis of international vocabulary: interlingua, occidental

    mixed languages- words and word formation are partially borrowed from non-artificial languages, partially created on the basis of artificially invented words and word-formation elements: Volapuk, Ido, Esperanto, Neo.

The number of speakers of artificial languages ​​can only be given approximately, due to the fact that there is no systematic record of speakers.

According to the degree of practical use, artificial languages ​​are divided into projects that have become widespread: Ido, Interlingua, Esperanto. Such languages, like national languages, are called "socialized", among artificial ones they are united under the term planned languages. An intermediate position is occupied by such artificial language projects that have a certain number of supporters, for example, Loglan (and its descendant Lojban), Slovio and others. Most artificial languages ​​have a single carrier - the author of the language (for this reason, it is more correct to call them "linguo projects", and not languages).

Two centuries ago, mankind began to think about creating a single, understandable language for everyone, so that people could communicate with each other without barriers. In literature and cinema, ordinary human language is also sometimes not enough to convey the culture of some invented world and make it more realistic - then artificial languages ​​​​come to the rescue.

Natural and artificial languages

Natural language is a hereditary system of visual and sound signs that a group of individuals use as their native language, that is, ordinary human language. The peculiarity of natural languages ​​is that they develop historically.

Such languages ​​include not only languages ​​with multi-million speakers, such as English, Chinese, French, Russian and others; there are also natural languages ​​spoken by only hundreds of people, such as koro or mathukar panau. The most marginal of them are dying out at an alarming rate. Living human languages ​​are learned in infancy for the purpose of direct communication with other people and for many other purposes.

Constructed languages- this term is often used when referring to sign systems similar to human ones, but created either for entertainment (for example, the Elvish language of J.R.R. Tolkien), or for some practical purposes (Esperanto). Such languages ​​are built with the help of already existing artificial languages ​​or on the basis of human, natural ones.

Artificial languages ​​include:

  • non-specialized, which are created for the same purposes that human languages ​​serve - the transfer of information, communication between people;
  • specialized, such as programming languages ​​and symbolic languages ​​of the exact sciences - mathematics, chemistry, etc.

The most famous artificially created languages

Currently, there are about 80 artificially created languages, and this is not counting programming languages. Some of the most famous artificially created languages ​​are Esperanto, Volapuk, Solresol, as well as the fictional Elvish language Quenya.

Solresol

Solresol was founded by the Frenchman Genre Francois Sudre. To master it, there is no need to learn musical notation, it is only important to know the names of the seven notes. It was created in 1817 and aroused considerable interest, which, however, did not last long.

There are many ways to write words in the Solresol language: they are written both in letters and, in fact, using musical notation, as well as in the form of seven numbers, the first seven letters of the alphabet, and even using the colors of the rainbow, which are also seven.

When using notes, the names do, re, mi, fa, sol, la and si are used. In addition to these seven, words are made up of combinations of note names - from two-syllable to four-syllable.

In solresol there is no such thing as synonyms, and it depends on the stress to which part of speech a particular word belongs, for example, a noun is the first syllable, an adjective is the penultimate one. The category of gender in fact consists of two: feminine and non-feminine.

Example: "miremi recisolsi" - this expression means "beloved friend."

Volapyuk

This artificial language of communication was created by a Catholic priest named Johann Schleyer from the city of Baden in Germany, in 1879. He said that God appeared to him in a dream and ordered him to create an international language.

The Volapuk alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet. It has 27 characters, of which eight are vowels and nineteen consonants, and its phonetics is quite simple - this is done to make it easier for people without complex combinations of sounds in their native language to learn it. French and English in a modified form represent the composition of Volapuk words.

The Volapuk case system has four - these are the dative, nominative, accusative and genitive cases. The minus of Volapyuk is that it has a rather complicated system of verb formation.

Volapyuk quickly became popular: a year after its creation, a Volapyuk textbook was written in German. The appearance of the first newspapers in this artificial language was not long in coming. In 1889, Volapük's fan clubs numbered almost three hundred. Although artificial languages continued to develop, with the advent of Esperanto, Volapuk lost its popularity, and now only a few dozen people around the world speak this language.

Example: "Glidö, o sol!" means "Hello Sun!"

Esperanto

Perhaps even those who do not know the details about artificial languages ​​have heard about Esperanto at least once. It is the most popular among artificial languages ​​and was originally created for the purpose of international communication. It even has its own flag.

In 1887 it was created by Ludwig Zamenhof. The name "Esperanto" is a word from the created language, translated as "having hope". The Latin alphabet is the basis for the Esperanto alphabet. Its vocabulary consists of Greek and Latin. The number of letters in the alphabet is 28. The stress falls on the penultimate syllable.

The grammar rules of this artificial language have no exceptions, and there are only sixteen of them. The category of gender does not exist here, there are only nominative and accusative cases. To convey other cases in speech, it is necessary to use prepositions.

You can speak this language after several months of constant practice, while natural languages ​​​​do not guarantee such a quick result. It is believed that now the number of people who speak Esperanto can reach several million, and presumably from fifty to a thousand people speak it from birth.

Example: "Ĉu vi estas libera ĉi-vespere?" means "Are you free tonight?"

Quenya

The English writer and linguist J. R. R. Tolkien created Elvish artificial languages ​​throughout his life. Quenya is the most famous of them. The idea of ​​creating a language did not arise on its own, but when writing a fantasy-style trilogy called The Lord of the Rings, one of the most popular books in the world, and other works of the writer on this topic.

Learning Quenya will be quite difficult. Quenya is based on Latin, as well as Greek and some Finnish. There are already ten cases in this artificial language, and four numbers. The Quenya alphabet was also developed separately, but the ordinary Latin alphabet is often used for writing.

In our time, the speakers of this artificial language are mainly fans of Tolkien's book and film trilogy, who create study guides and circles for the study of Quenya. Some magazines are even published in this language. And the number of Quenya speakers around the world is several tens of thousands.

Example: "Harië malta úva carë nér anwavë alya" means "Gold does not make a man really rich."

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Linguists, there are about 7,000 languages. But this is not enough for people - they come up with new ones over and over again. In addition to such famous examples as Esperanto or Volapuk, many other artificial languages ​​have been developed, sometimes simple and fragmentary, and sometimes extremely ingenious and elaborate.

Mankind has been creating artificial languages ​​for at least a couple of millennia. In antiquity and the Middle Ages, the "unearthly" language was considered divinely inspired, capable of penetrating into the mystical secrets of the universe. The Renaissance and the Enlightenment witnessed the emergence of a whole wave of "philosophical" languages, which were supposed to link all knowledge about the world into a single and logically flawless structure. As we approached modernity, auxiliary languages ​​became more popular, which were supposed to facilitate international communication and lead to the unification of mankind.

Today, when talking about artificial languages, the so-called artlangs- languages ​​that exist within the limits of artistic works. These are, for example, Quenya and Tolkien's Sindarin, the Klingo language of the inhabitants of the Star Trek universe, the Dothraki language in the Game of Thrones, or the N'avi language from James Cameron's Avatar.

If we take a closer look at the history of artificial languages, it turns out that linguistics is by no means an abstract field where only intricate grammars are dealt with.

Utopian expectations, hopes and desires of mankind were often projected precisely into the sphere of language. Although these hopes usually ended in disappointment, there are many interesting things to be found in this story.

1. From Babylon to the angelic language

The diversity of languages, which complicates mutual understanding between people, was often interpreted in Christian culture as a curse of God sent to humanity as a result of the Babylonian pandemonium. The Bible tells of King Nimrod, who set out to build a gigantic tower that would reach the very sky with its top. God, angry with proud mankind, confused their language so that one ceased to understand the other.

It is quite natural that the dreams of a single language in the Middle Ages were directed to the past, and not to the future. It was necessary to find a language before confusion - the language in which even Adam spoke with God.

The first language that mankind spoke after the fall was Hebrew. It was preceded by that same language of Adam - a certain set of primary principles from which all other languages ​​\u200b\u200bcreated. This construction, by the way, can be quite correlated with the theory of generative grammar of Noam Chomsky, according to which any language is based on a deep structure with general rules and principles for constructing statements.

Many church fathers believed that the original language of mankind was Hebrew. One of the notable exceptions is the views of Gregory of Nyssa, who was ironic about the idea of ​​God as a school teacher showing the letters of the Hebrew alphabet to the ancestors. But in general, this belief was preserved in Europe throughout the Middle Ages.

Jewish thinkers and Kabbalists recognized that the relationship between an object and its designation is the result of an agreement and some kind of convention. It is impossible to find anything in common between the word "dog" and a four-legged mammal, even if this word is pronounced in Hebrew. But, in their opinion, this agreement was made between God and the prophets, and therefore is sacred.

Sometimes arguments about the perfection of the Hebrew language go to extremes. The 1667 treatise A Short Sketch of the True Natural Hebrew Alphabet demonstrates how the tongue, palate, uvula, and glottis physically form the corresponding letter of the Hebrew alphabet when it is pronounced. God not only took care to hand over the language to man, but also imprinted its structure in the structure of the organs of speech.

The first truly artificial language was invented in the 12th century by the Catholic abbess Hildegard of Bingen. A description of 1011 words has come down to us, which are given in a hierarchical order (in the beginning there are words for God, angels and saints). Previously, it was believed that the language was conceived by the author as universal.

But it is much more likely that it was a secret language intended for intimate conversations with angels.

Another "angelic" language was described in 1581 by the occultists John Dee and Edward Kelly. They named him Enochian(on behalf of the biblical patriarch Enoch) and described the alphabet, grammar and syntax of this language in their diaries. Most likely, the only place where it was used was the mystical seances of the English aristocracy. Things were quite different just a couple of centuries later.

2. Philosophical languages ​​and universal knowledge

With the beginning of the New Age, the idea of ​​a perfect language is experiencing a period of upsurge. Now they are no longer looking for it in the distant past, but they are trying to create it on their own. This is how philosophical languages ​​are born that have an a priori nature: this means that their elements are not based on real (natural) languages, but are postulated, created by the author literally from scratch.

Usually the authors of such languages ​​relied on some kind of natural science classification. Words here can be built on the principle of chemical formulas, when the letters in the word reflect the categories to which it belongs. According to this model, for example, the language of John Wilkins is arranged, who divided the whole world into 40 classes, within which separate genera and species are distinguished. So, the word “redness” in this language is conveyed by the word tida: ti is the designation of the class “perceived qualities”, d is the 2nd kind of such qualities, namely colors, a is the 2nd of the colors, that is, red.

Such a classification could not do without inconsistencies.

Borges was making fun of her when he wrote about animals “a) belonging to the Emperor, b) embalmed, h) included in this classification, and) running like crazy”, etc.

Another project to create a philosophical language was conceived by Leibniz - and eventually embodied in the language of symbolic logic, the tools of which we still use today. But it does not claim to be a full-fledged language: it can be used to establish logical connections between facts, but not to reflect these facts themselves (not to mention using such a language in everyday communication).

The Age of Enlightenment put forward a secular ideal instead of a religious one: new languages ​​were supposed to become assistants in establishing relations between nations and contribute to the rapprochement of peoples. "Pasigraphy" J. Memieux (1797) is still based on a logical classification, but the categories are chosen here on the basis of convenience and practicality. Projects for new languages ​​are being developed, but proposed innovations are often limited to simplifying the grammar of existing languages ​​to make them more concise and clear.

However, the desire for universalism is sometimes revived. At the beginning of the 19th century, Anne-Pierre-Jacques de Wims developed a project for a musical language similar to the language of angels. He suggests translating sounds into notes, which, in his opinion, are understandable not only to all people, but also to animals. But it never occurs to him that the French text encrypted in the score can only be read by someone who already knows at least French.

A more famous musical language was given a melodic name solresol, the draft of which was published in 1838. Each syllable is labeled with a note name. Unlike natural languages, many words differ by only one minimal element: soldorela means "to run", lyadorel means "to sell". Opposite meanings were indicated by inversion: domisol, a perfect chord, is God, and the opposite solmido denotes Satan.

It was possible to transmit messages to solresol using voice, writing, playing notes or showing colors.

Critics called solresol "the most artificial and most inapplicable of all a priori languages". In practice, it was really almost never used, but this did not prevent its creator from receiving a large cash prize at the World Exhibition in Paris, a gold medal in London and gaining the approval of such influential people as Victor Hugo, Lamartine and Alexander von Humboldt. The idea of ​​human unity was too seductive. It is precisely this that the creators of new languages ​​will persecute at a later time.

3. Volapuk, Esperanto and the unification of Europe

The most successful linguistic construction projects were not intended to comprehend divine secrets or the structure of the universe, but to facilitate communication between peoples. Today this role has been usurped by English. But does this not infringe on the rights of people for whom this language is not native? It was precisely this problem that Europe faced by the beginning of the 20th century, when international contacts intensified, and medieval Latin had long since fallen out of use even in academic circles.

The first such project was Volapuk(from vol "world" and pük - language), developed in 1879 by the German priest Johann Martin Schleyer. Ten years after its publication, there are already 283 Volapük clubs around the world - a success never seen before. But soon there was no trace of this success.

Unless the word "volapyuk" has firmly entered the everyday lexicon and began to denote speech, consisting of a hodgepodge of incomprehensible words.

Unlike the "philosophical" languages ​​of the previous formation, this is not an a priori language, since it borrows its foundations from natural languages, but not quite a posteriori, since it subjects existing words to arbitrary deformations. According to the creator, this was supposed to make Volapuk understandable to representatives of different language groups, but in the end it was incomprehensible to anyone - at least without long weeks of memorization.

\the most successful linguistic construction project was and remains Esperanto. The draft of this language was published in 1887 by the Polish ophthalmologist Ludwik Lazar Zamenhof under the pseudonym Dr. Esperanto, which in the new language meant "Hopeful". The project was published in Russian, but quickly spread first to the Slavic countries, and then throughout Europe. In the preface to the book, Zamenhof says that the creator of an international language has three tasks to solve:

Dr. Esperanto

from the book "International Language"

I) To make the language extremely easy, so that it can be learned in jest. II) So that everyone who has learned this language can immediately use it to explain with people of various nations, it does not matter whether this language is recognized by the world and whether it finds many adherents or not.<...>III) Find means to overcome the indifference of the world and to induce it as soon as possible and en masse to start using the proposed language as a living language, and not with a key in hand and in cases of extreme need.

This language has a fairly simple grammar, consisting of only 16 rules. The vocabulary is made up of slightly modified words that have common roots for many European peoples to facilitate recognition and memorization. The project was a success - today the carriers of experanto, according to various estimates, are from 100 thousand to 10 million people. More importantly, a certain number of people (about a thousand people) learn Esperanto in their first years of life, and do not learn it at a later age.

Esperanto attracted a large number of enthusiasts, but the language of international communication, as Zamenhof hoped, did not become. This is not surprising: a language can take on such a role not due to linguistic, but to the economic or political advantages that lie behind it. According to the famous aphorism, “a language is a dialect that has an army and a navy,” and Esperanto had neither.

4. Extraterrestrial intelligence, elves and Dothraki

Among more recent projects stands out loglan(1960) - a language based on formal logic, in which each statement must be understood in a unique way, and any ambiguity is completely eradicated. With its help, the sociologist James Brown wanted to test the hypothesis of linguistic relativity, according to which the worldview of the representatives of a particular culture is determined by the structure of their language. The check failed, since the language, of course, did not become the first and native for anyone.

In the same year, the language appeared lincos(from lat. lingua cosmica - "cosmic language"), developed by the Dutch mathematician Hans Freudenthal and designed to communicate with extraterrestrial intelligence. The scientist assumed that with its help any intelligent being could understand another, based on elementary logic and mathematical calculations.

But most of the attention in the 20th century received artificial languages ​​that exist within the framework of works of art. Quenya and Sindarin, invented by professor of philology J. R. Tolkien, quickly spread among the writer's fans. Interestingly, unlike other fictional languages, they had their own history of development. Tolkien himself admitted that language was primary for him, and history was secondary.

J.R.R. Tolkien

from correspondence

Rather, "stories" were written to create a world for languages, rather than vice versa. In my case, the name comes first, and then the story. I would generally prefer to write in "elvish".

No less famous is the Klingon language from the Star Trek series, developed by linguist Mark Okrand. A very recent example is the Dothraki language of the nomads from Game of Thrones. George Martin, the author of a series of books about this universe, did not develop any of the fictional languages ​​in detail, so the creators of the series had to deal with it. The task was undertaken by the linguist David Peterson, who later even wrote a textbook about it called The Art of Inventing Languages.

At the end of the book Designing Languages, linguist Alexander Pipersky writes: it is quite possible that after reading you will want to invent your own language. And then he warns: “If your artificial language aims to change the world, most likely it will not succeed, and only disappointment awaits you (there are few exceptions). If it is needed in order to please you and others, good luck!”

The creation of artificial languages ​​has a long history. At first they were a means of communication with the other world, then - an instrument of universal and accurate knowledge. With their help, they hoped to establish international cooperation and achieve mutual understanding. Recently, they have turned into entertainment or become part of fantasy art worlds.

Recent discoveries in psychology, linguistics, and neurophysiology, virtual reality, and technological developments such as the brain-machine interface may revive interest in artificial languages. It is quite possible that the dream that Arthur Rimbaud wrote about will come true: “In the end, since every word is an idea, the time for a universal language will come!<...>It will be a language that goes from soul to soul and includes everything: smells, sounds, colors.