List of constructed languages

This list of constructed languages is in alphabetical order, and divided into auxiliary, engineered, and artistic (including fictional) languages, and their respective subgenres.

Auxiliary languages

Spoken (major)

The following are languages that have generated significant followings, or which have been of significance in the history of auxiliary languages.

Language name	ISO	Year of first publication	Creator	Comments
Volapük	vo, vol	1879–1880	Johann Martin Schleyer	First to generate international interest in International auxiliary languagess (IALs)
Esperanto	eo, epo	1887	L. L. Zamenhof	Fluent speakers: between 30,000 and 300,000^[1]; Casual users: est. 100,000 to 2 million; native: 200 to 2000 (1996, est.)^[2].
Idiom Neutral		1902	Waldemar Rosenberger	A naturalistic IAL by a former advocate of Volapük
Latino sine Flexione		1903	Giuseppe Peano	"Latin without inflections," it replaced Idiom Neutral in 1908
Ido	io, ido	1907	A group of reformist Esperanto speakers	The most successful offspring of Esperanto
Occidental	ie, ile	1922	Edgar de Wahl	A sophisticated naturalistic IAL (Interlingue)
Novial	nov	1928	Otto Jespersen	Another sophisticated naturalistic IAL
Glosa	igs	1943	Lancelot Hogben, et al.	Originally called Interglossa, has a strong Greco-Latin vocabulary
Interlingua	ia, ina	1951	International Auxiliary Language Association	A Language to create common Romance vocabulary

Spoken (minor)

There have been hundreds of proposals for auxiliary languages, and more continue to be created. The following are languages with some notability, either historically or because of unusual characteristics.

Language name	ISO	Year of first publication	Creator	Comments
Adjuvilo		1908	Claudius Colas	an esperantido created to cause dissent among Idoists
Afrihili	afh	1970	K. A. Kumi Attobrah	a pan-African language
Arcaicam Esperantom		1969	Manuel Halvelik	'Archaic Esperanto', an archaizing 'Old Esperanto' for literature
Babm		1962	Rikichi Okamoto	noted for using Latin letters as an abjad
Bolak		1899	Léon Bollack	quite prosperous in its initial years, now almost forgotten^[3].
Communicationssprache		1839	Joseph Schipfer	based on French
Esperanto II		1937	René de Saussure	last of Saussure's many esperantidos
Europanto		1996	Diego Marani	a "linguistic jest"
Kotava	avk	1978	Staren Fetcey	a sophisticated a priori IAL
Lingua Franca Nova	lfn	1998	Dr. C. George Boeree and others	Romance vocabulary with creole-like grammar
Lingua sistemfrater		1957	Pham Xuan Thai	Greco-Latin vocabulary with southeast Asian grammar
Lojban	jbo	1987	Logical Language Group	A computer-generated mix of Mandarin, English, Hindi, Spanish, Russian and Arab
Modern Indo-European		2006	Carlos Quiles and María Teresa Batalla	modernized Proto-Indo-European
Mondial		1940s	Dr. Helge Heimer	naturalistic European language
Mundolinco		1888	J. Braakman	the first esperantido
Neo		1961	Arturo Alfandari	a very terse European language
Noxilo		1997	Mizta Sentaro	a language trying to avoid any regional or ethnic bias
Nuwaubic		1970s?	Malachi Z. York	the language of a black supremacist religious group
Poliespo		1990s?	Nvwtohiyada Idehesdi Sequoyah	Esperanto grammar with significant Cherokee vocabulary
Solresol		1827	François Sudre	the famous "musical language"
Sona		1935	Kenneth Searight	best known attempt at universality of vocabulary
Spokil		1887 or 1890	Adolph Nicolas	an a priori language by a former Volapük advocate
Toki Pona		2001	Sonja Elen Kisa	highly simplified language with restricted vocabulary
Unilingua		1966	Noubar Agapoff	an a priori language with systematic vocabulary (aka: Mirad)
Universalglot		1868	Jean Pirro	arguably the first IAL, predating even Volapük
Vendergood		1906	William James Sidis	invented when he was eight years old
Yorskr Tunguh		2007	Philip Eygarth	a language with a naturalistic vocabulary created for the Yorkshire region of England from ancestral Danish Old Norse

Controlled languages

Controlled languages are natural languages that have in some way been altered to make them simpler, easier to use, or more acceptable to those who do not speak the original language well. Most of these have been based on English.

Visual languages

Visual languages use symbols or movements in place of the spoken word.

Engineered languages

Human-usable

An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language by John Wilkins
Arahau
aUI
Characteristica universalis
Ilaksh
Isotype
Ithkuil
Láadan (ldn)
Loglan
Lin Compress in factor of 7
Logopandecteision
Lojban (jbo)
Ro
Unilingua

Knowledge representation

Common Logic, an ISO standard derived from KIF
CycL
The Distributed Language Translation project used a "binary-coded" version of Esperanto as a pivot language between the source language and its translation.
Lincos
Loom
RDF
Universal Networking Language

Artistic languages

Languages used in fiction

Literature

Adûnaic from J. R. R. Tolkien's works
Aklo, Tsath-yo, and R'lyehian are ancient and obscure languages in the works of H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, and others. Aklo is considered by some writers to be the written language of the Serpent People
Amtorian, spoken in some cultures on the planet Venus in Pirates of Venus by Edgar Rice Burroughs and several sequels. Judged by critic Fredrik Ekman to have "a highly inventive morphology but a far less interesting syntax." (See [2].)
Ancient Language in the Inheritance Trilogy by Christopher Paolini (although this is considered to be a cipher of English by many)
Angley, Unglish and Ingliss - three languages spoken respectively at Western Europe, North America and the Pacific in the 29th Century world of Poul Anderson's "Orion Shall Rise". All derived from present-day English, the three are mutually unintelligible, following 800 years of separate development after a 21st century nuclear war and the extensive absorption of words and grammatical forms from French in the first case, Russian, Chinese and Mongolian in the second, and Polynesian in the third.
Anglic, the dominant language of the declining Galactic empire depicted in Poul Anderson's Dominic Flandry series, is descended from present-day English but so changed that only professional historians or linguists can understand English texts.
Anglo-French, in the alternate history world of the Lord Darcy stories by Randall Garrett - where England and France were permanently united into a single kingdom by Richard the Lionheart and their languages consequently merged.
Anglo-French, unconnected with the above, spoken in the dystopian 20th Century of Poul Anderson's "The Shield of Time" where England won the Hundred Years' War and conquered France, but later the center of the English-French Kingdom shifted to Paris, and it was all eventually absorbed into a Europe-wide, oppressive Catholic theocracy. The language is essentially a French dialect with a considerable number of English terms, words and titles, such as "Lord". "England" is called that rather than "Angleterre" as in the French of our timeline.
asa'pili ("world language"), in bolo'bolo, by Swiss author P.M..
Babel-17, in Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany
Baronh, language of Abh in Seikai no Monsho (Crest of the Stars) and others, by Morioka Hiroyuki
Black Speech - language of Mordor in The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
Bokonon - language of the Bokononism religion in Kurt Vonnegut's "Cat's Cradle"
Codex Seraphinianus by Luigi Serafini appears to be written in a constructed language which is presumably the language of the alien civilization the book describes
D'Haran The ancient, dead language of pre-Great War New World (D'Hara, Midlands, and Westland) in Terry Goodkind's "Sword of Truth" series.
Drac, language of the alien species in Barry B. Longyear's Enemy Mine and The Enemy Papers
Kad'k, the language of the Dwarfs in Terry Pratchett's Discworld
- Language of the Making - the basis of all magic, spoken by Dragons as their native tongue and learned with considerable effort by human mages
- Hardic - linguistically descended from the above
- Osskilian, and Kargish - a different family of languages, distantly related
Elemeno, language of two sisters in Caucasia by Danzy Senna.
"Expanded English" or "World English", spoken throughout the world in the Twenty-Second Century Utopian world of H.G.Wells' "The Shape of Things to Come", its spread simulataneous with the establishment of world government. In 1979 of that timeline, Basic English was proclaimed a worldwide ligua franca, and a European rebellious movement demanding "freedom from Basic English" was crushed. Following upon Basic English with its limited vocabulary, English in general made great strides, gradually displacing all other languagues while absorbing many of their words into its vocabulary. It is mentioned that in the 21st Century English and Spanish became "intechangeable languagues" and that Arabic became "decerpit" and was abandoned by its former speakers. The final result was a worldwide English, very different from that of the 20th Century, with a vocabulary of nearly two million words, "a synthetic language into which roots, words and idioms from every speech in the world have been poured". People of different ethnic origins (Italians and Chinese are sepcifically mentioned) show a preference for using words derived from their former langugue, but all understand each other [3].
The Giant's Fence by Michael Jacobson. ([4])
Goodenuf English, a form of English used by foreigners in the novel Rainbows End by Vernon Vinge
Glide, created by Diana Reed Slattery, used by the Death Dancers of The Maze Game
Groilish, spoken by giants in Giants and the Joneses by Julia Donaldson.
Gnommish, spoken by the fairies in Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl series.
High Speech of Gilead from Stephen King's The Dark Tower (series)
Kesh, in Ursula K. Le Guin's novel Always Coming Home
Krakish, in Guardians of Ga'Hoole by Kathryn Lasky
Láadan (ldn), in Suzette Haden Elgin's science fiction novel Native Tongue and sequels
Lapine, in Watership Down by Richard Adams
Linyaari spoken by the Linyaari people of Vhiliinyar in Anne McCaffery's Acorna series.
Mando'a, created by Karen Traviss, used by the Mandalorians in the Star Wars Republic Commando novels Hard Contact and Triple Zero
Marain, in The Culture novels of Iain M. Banks
The Matoran language used by the various sentient species in Bionicle. It is named after its creators the Matoran species.
The languages of Middle-earth (most notably Sindarin (sjn), Quenya (qya) and Khuzdûl) by J. R. R. Tolkien, partly published in The Lord of the Rings, and posthumously discussed in The History of Middle-earth and other publications.
Molvanian from Molvania, A Land Untouched By Modern Dentistry
Nadsat slang, in A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Newspeak, in Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (fictional constructed language)
The "Nautilus Language", spoken on board Jules Verne's famous fictional submarine, in token of crew members having completely renounced their former homelands and backgrounds. Every morning, after scanning the horizon with his binoculars, Nemo's second-in-command says: "Nautron respoc lorni virch". The meaning of these words is never clarified, but their construction seems to indicate that the "Nautilus Language" (its actual name is not given) is based on European languages.
Old Solar, in Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength by C. S. Lewis
The Old Language from Stephen King's The Dark Tower series.
The Old Tongue from Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series
Parseltongue, the language of snakes, in the Harry Potter series. The ability of humans to speak it is considered a magic ability.
Pravic and Iotic, in The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
Ptydepe, from Václav Havel's play The Memorandum
Quintaglio from Robert J. Sawyer's Quintaglio Ascension Trilogy
Quenya from J. R. R. Tolkien's works.
Qwghlmian from Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon and The Baroque Cycle
Rihannsu, spoken by the Rihannsu (Romulans) in the Star Trek novels of Diane Duane
Spocanian, in Rolandt Tweehuysen's fictional country Spocania
Sindarin from J. R. R. Tolkien's works.
Stark (short for Star Common), a common interstellar English-based language from Orson Scott Card's Ender series
Starsza Mowa from Andrzej Sapkowski's Hexer saga
Troll language from Terry Pratchett's Discworld
Utopian language, appearing in a poem by Petrus Gilles accompanying Thomas More's Utopia
Whitmanite, spoken by members of a radical Anarchist-Pacifist cult of the same name in Robert A. Heinlein' The Puppet Masters. "Allucquere" is a female given name in Whitmanite.
Zaum, poetic tongue elaborated by Velimir Khlebnikov, Aleksei Kruchonykh, and other Russian Futurists as a "transrational" and "most universal" language "of songs, incantations, and curses".
Several languages spoken by Panurge in François Rabelais' Pantagruel (1532)
The Time Machine featured an unnamed language for the Eloi people.
Jack Womack's Dryco novels feature a future form of English with a modified grammar.

Comic books

Bordurian in some of Hergé's The Adventures of Tintin, mostly in The Calculus Affair
Interlac, the universal language spoken in the 30th century in the Legion of Super Heroes comics
Kryptonese, or Kryptonian, the language of Superman's home planet of Krypton
Syldavian, in some of Hergé's The Adventures of Tintin, mostly in King Ottokar's Sceptre

Movies and television

Two kinds of alien language, termed "Alienese" and "Beta Crypt" appear quite frequently in background sight gags in Futurama.
Ancient in the Stargate universe (i.e. Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis) is the language of the Ancients, the builders of the Stargates; it is similar in pronunciation to Medieval Latin. The Athosians say prayers in Ancient. (However, when shown onscreen, written Ancient is simply a different character set for English)
Atlantean created by Marc Okrand for the film Atlantis: The Lost Empire
Cityspeak, a "mishmash of Japanese, Spanish, German," plus Hungarian and French, spoken on the street of overcrowded and multi-lingual Los Angeles of 2019 in Blade Runner. Similarly, used in many cyberpunk genre role playing games.
The Divine Language is a language invented by director Luc Besson and actress Milla Jovovich for the 1997 movie The Fifth Element.
Enchanta, in the Encantadia and Etheria television series in the Philippines, created by the head writer Suzette Doctolero
Gelfling, spoken in Jim Henson's fantasy epic The Dark Crystal
Goa'uld, the galactic lingua franca from Stargate SG-1, supposedly influenced Ancient Egyptian
Huttese, language of both alien species and people in some of George Lucas's Star Wars films
Irken, in Invader Zim, by Jhonen Vasquez, et al.
Klingon (tlhIngan Hol), in the Star Trek movie and television series, created by Marc Okrand
Krakozhian from The Terminal
Ku, a fictional African language in the movie The Interpreter (2005)
Linguacode, a universal language code sometimes used by the United Federation of Planets in the Star Trek television series.
Marklar, spoken by the people of Marklar in a South Park episode.
Minbari from Babylon 5, three related languages used together, corresponding to the areas of expertise of the three societal castes.
Nadsat, the fictional language spoken by Alex and his friends in Clockwork Orange
Nellish, a personal language from the main character of Nell
Paku from Land of the Lost
PortuGreek, the trade language featured in Waterworld
The pseudo-Spanish/Greek/Arabic language of Republica, as used in the fictional Chanel 9 program within the British comedy sketch show the The Fast Show
Quenya (qya) and Sindarin (sjn), the two Elven languages, spoken in the Lord of the Rings movies.
Slovetzian, the fictional Slavic language of Slovetzia in the movie The Beautician and the Beast
The Star Wars series features several fictional languages, see: Languages in Star Wars
Tenctonese from the Alien Nation movie and television series, created by Van Ling and Kenneth Johnson
Unas in Stargate SG-1, the first hosts of the Goa'uld.
Ulam, the language spoken by the prehistoric humans in the movie Quest for Fire, created by Anthony Burgess by melting roots of European languages.
Vampire language used in the movie Blade.
Vulcan language from Star Trek
Xian language heard in the original Japanese version of Invasion of Astro-Monster, aka Godzilla vs. Monster Zero

Unnamed languages

In the Janissaries series of science-fiction novels by Jerry Pournelle, the human natives of the planet Tran speak a language apparently derived from Mycenaean. A form of Latin is also spoken in an empire resembling ancient Rome's, but only by scholars.
Riddley Walker, a 1980 novel by Russell Hoban, set in a post-apocalyptic future, is written entirely in a "devolved" form of English.
Klonoa's dream language, used in both Phantomile and Lunatea.

Music

Gulevache: fictional Romance Language of the kingdom of Gulevandia on the bilingual opera Cardoso en Gulevandia by the comedy group Les Luthiers
Kobaïan, the language used by 70's French rock group Magma.
Vonlenska, sometimes known as "Hopelandic", the language sung by Jón Þór Birgisson of the Icelandic band "Sigur Rós" on many of their songs.
Loxian, featured on the Enya album Amarantine.
Unnamed language by Yves Barbieux, used in his song "Sanomi" and performed by the Belgian group Urban Trad in the Eurovision Song contest in 2003.
Mohelmot, a forbidden language used by The Residents on the album The Big Bubble: Part Four of the Mole Trilogy.
Unnamed language by Emmanuelle Orange, used in her song Pialoushka and performed by Montreal band Eden106.
Unnamed language featured in the chorus of 2NU's 1991 track This is Ponderous.
Unnamed language featured in the soundtrack to the film 1492: Conquest of Paradise by Vangelis.
Unnamed language constructed by Wim Mertens to be used in his vocal performances (piano/voice).
Unnamed language constructed by the Canadian classical composer Claude Vivier, used in some of his works like Trois Airs pour un opéra imaginaire.
Unnamed language constructed by unknown. The language was used in Belgium's Eurovision 2008 song O Julissi by the band Ishtar. It resembles Ukrainian a bit.

Performance

Grammelot (Cirquish) is a "gibberish" that goes back to the 16th century, used by performers, including those of Cirque du Soleil

Games

Al Bhed is a language used by the race of people known by the same name in the fictional world of Spira, in the games Final Fantasy X & Final Fantasy X-2
Alaani, Angram (old dwarvish), Asdharia (high elvish), Isdira (elvish), Rogolan (dwarvish), Rssahh (language of the 'lizard-people') and others in the role-playing game The Dark Eye
Ancient Altmer, the old tongue of High Elves in The Elder Scrolls series.
Ancient Hylian is the ancient language used by the first Hylians in The Legend of Zelda
Animalese is one language spoken by the NPC characters of Animal Crossing. There is also the option that they can speak Bebebese.
Bluddian from the video game Captain Blood by Cryo Interactive Entertainment
Common, Darnassian, Draenei language, Dwarvish, Gnomish, Gutterspeak, Orcish, Taurahe, Thalassian, and Troll language, all from the Warcraft Universe
D'ni, the language spoken by the subterranean D'ni people in Cyan Worlds' Myst series of computer games and novels
Dino, the language made by the Dinosaur Planet in Star Fox Adventures
Eilert Erdoten, the languge of the dragons in Istaria: Chronicles of The Gifted
Gargish, used in the Ultima computer game series, by the gargoyle race
Hymmnos, used by Reyvateils for Song Magic in Ar tonelico
kiZombie, used by zombies in the Urban Dead MMORPG
Lashonnu is the language of the Wealdings (the Forest People) in the Gondica role playing game by Anders Blixt
Mando'a, created by Karen Traviss, used by the Mandalorians in Star Wars: Republic Commando
Or'zet, the rediscovered language of the Orks from the Shadowrun role playing game
Khalani, the language used by the Protoss in the StarCraft series
The language used by the alien invaders of Earth, the Scrin race, in Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars.
Simlish from the computer game The Sims
Sload, the language of the eponymous race in The Elder Scrolls series.
Sperethiel, the language of the Elven nations of Tir Tairngire and Tir na Nóg from the Shadowrun role playing game
Tho Fan, in the Xbox game Jade Empire, created by Wolf Wikeley
The unnamed language used by the Zerg race in the StarCraft series
The unnamed language used by the Blobs when they sing, in the PlayStation Portable Game, "LocoRoco"
The unnamed backwards Japanese/Latin used in Ico and Shadow of the Colossus
The unnamed language used in the Klonoa series up to Klonoa Heroes: Legend of the Star Medal, and an expetation in Namco X Capcom, uses normal Japanese. It is known as Klonian or more recently Lunatean from Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil
Panzerese, a mix of German, Japanese, and Latin, used in the Panzer Dragoon series of games.
Alltongue, magical language spoken in Arcadia in The Longest Journey series
Tsolyani, a language used in Tékumel, a game setting developed by M. A. R. Barker.
Vasudan, the language spoken by the Vasudan race in Descent: FreeSpace– The Great War and in the other titles in the FreeSpace series.

Toys

Furbish

Internet-based

Kēlen, by Sylvia Sotomayor
Teonaht, by Sally Caves
Verdurian and several other languages created for the fictional planet of Almea by Mark Rosenfelder

Alternative languages

Anglish
Brithenig (bzt), created by the inventor of the alternate history of Ill Bethisad, Andrew Smith
Several North Slavic languages, inspired by the existence of West, East and South Slavic languages and the absence of a Northern branch
Wenedyk, a language of the alternate history of Ill Bethisad created by Jan van Steenbergen