Talk:List of constructed languages

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(moved from Talk:List of fictional languages)

Does "pinguish" really qualify? It's not much of a language per se. It's just mumbling. Also, there are many other children shows that has similar "languages" (Instead, all of the story is told through images, communication is mainly conveyed by the tone of voice) and Pinguish isn't really unique enough to be a better example than any else...

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It probably goes without saying, but Morporkian, Agatean, Quirmian and Klatchian don't count, because (unlike Tolkien and his translation notes) there's no evidence they aren't actually identical to English, Japanese, French and Arabic, right? What about Latatian; it's not "proper" Latin, but I'd hesitate to call it fictional exactly. In Colour of Magic there's two lines of "Krullian", which was vaguely Norwegian looking gibberish.

[edit] Merge proposal

(moved from Talk:List of fictional languages)

[edit] against

The reason this huge list is on a page by itself is that it would detract from the discussion on the page titled "fictional languages". Wikipedia has tons of poorly organized material, and sorting one page into logical units is a step in the right direction. Isn't there some policy paper on this somewhere? Cbdorsett 16:33, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree - merging them would add nothing to this page and detract from the other one. DenisMoskowitz 19:57, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
I am against merging the two articles. I am also against merging the list of fictional languages article with the artistic languages article. I see a definite distinction between languages created for published works of fiction and languages created for individual artistic purposes. MakeRocketGoNow 18:58, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Also against. I liked this page way back when, back when it was a lot less complicated [and consisted entierly of what's now the 'Artistic Languages' category, and then not broken into subdivisions of literary, comic books, movies/television, et cetera. Just put it back to when it was in alphabetical order. I don't even understand what the deal with 'Auxiliary languages' and 'Engineered Languages' is all about. ARBlackwood

[edit] in favour

I, on the other hand, favour the idea of a merge. While I agree that extremely huge articles should better be transformed into a set of smaller articles, it should be noted that Fictional languages is a very short article. In fact, adding it to the list would hardly make it bigger than it is now. Besides, I'm not always happy with our habit of making lists of about everybody and everything. --IJzeren Jan 21:29, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

  • I agree; the Fictional languages article is so short that using it as "preface" to this list wwould work well. Anke 08:45, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wrong proposal

You probably failed to notice that the third article, Artistic language, contains a huge list, heavily overlapping with List of fictional languages. These lists should be merged into this place, not to merge a long list and a text. mikka (t) 22:08, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, you're absolutely right. I noticed the same thing yesterday. Will look into it. Thanks! --IJzeren Jan In mij legge alle fogultjes een ij 06:22, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Mikka: So you're saying there should be a single list of both artistic and fictional languages, and the two articles on those subjects should be separate? If so that sounds good to me. Fantom 19:00, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Basically yes, only the list should be renamed to List of constructed languages. (WHOA! It already exists! One more to merge...) mikka (t) 19:22, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] New proposal

Mikka is right about that. It's a terrible mess. So I've taken the liberty to redo the list of constructed languages completely. It now contains all list stuff found in the list of fictional languages, fictional language, artistic language, international auxiliary language, engineered language, and the list of constructed languages itself. Splitting it up into several smaller lists is of course possible, but IMO not desirable. The problem is that there's indeed a huge overlap between international auxiliary languages and engineered languages on one hand, and between fictional languages and other artistic languages on the other. So, to avoid all kinds of doublets I think it's better to keep all eggs in one basket.

What does this mean for this discussion? Well, first of all that the question whether we should merge fictional language with the list of fictional languages or not is obsolete. The situation as it looks now, is that fictional language does not contain any info that is not contained in artistic language#fictional languages, and therefore should become a redirect to the latter. Same goes for the descriptive header of the list. As for the list itself, I believe it should become a redirect too, this time to the renewed list of constructed languages.

That is what I propose, anyway. An alternative (but no preferred by yours truly) solution could be that we move contents of list of constructed languages#Fictional languages back to the list of fictional languages and replace it with a link to it. —IJzeren Jan In mij legge alle fogultjes een ij 12:13, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Logical languages

Lojban and Loglan are hardly auxilary languages - they're logical languages (created primarily to test Sappir-Whorf hypothesis). But that would require a third category.

[edit] Trimming the list

See also: Talk:International auxiliary language#Trimming the list

Chris, I agree with most of the deletions and moves you made, but not with the deletion of Dunia, Fasala, Folkspraak, and Progressiva. Without delving into their significance or lack of it, the fact remains that these languages have articles, and as such they should be linked to from the list.

I'll allow Dunia. It's level 0 (draft project, the anonymous author sent a discription on diskette to Rick Harrison), but clearly an IAL project. Folkspraak and Progressiva are also level 0. Fasala is not intended as an IAL, acc. WP. If uncompleted projects merit a mention, then I guess we'll keep the first three.

As for Comunleng: there used to be an article about it, but that has been deleted. There was quite some fuss about that. The first AfD was concluded with a keep (no consensus), the second one, held very shortly after that resulted in a very narrow-margin delete. That does not prevent the language from having articles in several other language-editions of wikipedia. In my view, even if a full-blown article about Comunleng is not warranted, a place on a list of auxlangs most definitely is.

I'll insist that everything on the list be referenced to somewhere, for verifiability's sake. The list would be more useful, mind you, if it were a table including the author and date of publication (and maybe Blanke rating? see below). So I'd prefer to exclude redlinked languages.

I have to add that the idea of distinguishing between major and minor auxlangs on the list could be a good idea in my opinion. Where would you put the border? —IJzeren Jan In mij legge alle fogultjes een ij 14:18, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Here's Detlev Blanke's 18-step scale, in Esperanto, which I expect you can read:
1. publikigo de sistemo (multaj projektoj),
2. la aùtoro eldonas revueton en sia lingvo (ekz. Ro, Medial)
3. relative forta propagado, ekzisto de adeptoj, internacia korespondado
4. certaj organizaj formoj de propadago, malgrandaj organizoj (ekz. Idiom Neutral, Novial)
5. iom da beletro, tradukoj, originala literaturo
6. pluraj revuoj en la planlingvo
7. parta uzado por fakaj celoj, scienco, tekniko (Latino sine flehhione, Basic English)
8. instruado, neshtataj kursoj
9. ioma paroluzo, internaciaj aranghoj (Volapùk, Occidental, Interlingua)
10. pli forta praktika uzado, fakaj revuoj kaj organizoj
11. pli evoluigitaj naciaj kaj internaciaj organizoj
12. abunda beletro, tradukoj, originalaj verkoj
13. relative disvastigita instruado, ankaù en shtataj lernejoj
14. grandaj internaciaj eventoj, mondaj kongresoj
15. radioelsendado
16. socia kaj politika diferencigo de parolantoj
17. propra junulara movado
18. parta uzado en familio, bilingvismo de infanoj

Quick translation:

  1. Publication of a system
  2. The author distributes a small periodical in the L. (e.g. Ro, Medial)
  3. Relative strong publicity, existence of other competent users, international correspondence
  4. Certain organized forms of publicity, small organizations (e.g., Idiom Neutral, Novial)
  5. Some belles-lettres translations and original works
  6. Several periodicals in the L.
  7. Some use for practical purposes, science, technology (e.g., Latino sine flexione, Basic English)
  8. Instruction, non-state-supported courses
  9. Some oral usage, international meetings
  10. More extensive practical use, professional journals and organizations
  11. Well developed national and international organizations
  12. Abundant belles-lettres translations, and original works
  13. Relatively widespread instruction, including state schools
  14. Large international events, world congresses
  15. Radio broadcasts
  16. Social and political differentiation among speakers
  17. Dedicated youth movement
  18. Some use within families, bilingual children


Now, there are problems with this scale. First, it assumes all IALs aim to emulate Esperanto - having youth movements, denaska speakers, etc. A vastly successful IAL like mediaeval Latin would still trail Esperanto. Second, a few of the criteria appear antiquated. Does a podcast = radio broadcast (Step 15)? Does a regularly updated website = a small periodical by the author (Step 2)? Thirdly, it's not clear whether you can skip levels. Still, it's an established benchmark by a wellknown figure in academic interlinguistics.
Step 3 is an important threshold, cos having multiple users strengthens your claim to be a language rather than a mere project. (Blanke makes the project/language cutoff at a higher level, which I find tendentious.) Step 7 is also important, because the language is being used as an IAL in the present, not at some vague future date.
I'd suggest anything below 3 are "minor projects", and any at 7 or higher are "major projects". I don't where to put projects at levels 3-6. It seems fussy to have three categories - "minor projects" (1-2), "major projects" (3-6), "established IALs" (7+, i.e., have seen practical use). - but maybe that's the way to go. The difference between, say, Atlango and Glosa is at least as great as between Glosa and Ido. (There must be a more neutral label than "established IALs", one less likely to annoy the proponents of smaller projects.)
If a language has special claims to notability that aren't captured by the Blanke scale, there can be exceptions. Bissymbolics strikes me as an example of an important, highly successful language (more so than Esperanto!) that might only reach level 3 (although, arguably, level 13).
Most of the projects in Wikipedia are at level 1 or less (let's put uncompleted projects level at level 0). Whether they stay is not for me to decide. Based on past votes, I expect they will stay. I wonder if the Blanke level could be incorporated into an auxlang template, to form part of the sidebar? But that's a bigger issue, of course.--Chris 19:50, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
Thank you! I'm not really good at reading Esperanto, but I'll give it a try tomorrow! —IJzeren Jan In mij legge alle fogultjes een ij 22:46, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
Mine's not so great either, but I've done a quick (and possibly inaccurate) translation.--Chris 00:50, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Separating the wheat from the chaff

I arrived at this page looking for constructed languages that have met with some success. Instead, I've been going through the list, searching on google and voting on AfD pages. This is no good. I suggest that the Spoken Languages section be separated into three groups:

  • Conlangs with more than 100 known speakears (Make this a table with three columns: conlang name, number of speakers at peak, references.)
I could support this, but it may be hard to get good figures on numbers of speakers. That's why I'm leaning towards using the Blanke scale.--Chris 06:46, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
I think the Blanke scale is too granular. There's only a handful of conlangs that actually gathered traction. They'll all fit in this category or the one below. Gavin
  • Other fully documented conlangs - Those with fully defined grammatical rules and a mostly complete corpus.
  • Incomplete conlangs (Many listed here will probably be AfD candidates.)
Unfortunately, I doubt mass deletion of bogus conlangs is possible. Some kind of labelling would have better chance, I think.--Chris 06:48, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. That's why we should keep a bucket for "Incomplete conlangs". It'll keep them neatly tucked away on the bottom shelf. Gavin
I take it you guys are talking about IALs only here, right? Well, I think we can safely state that the number of auxlangs that have, or ever had, more than 100 speakers is fairly small, perhaps six or seven, and I guess we all agree that the List should not be limited to those. It's of course possible to make subsections, but I'm not sure if that's the ideal solution. Like Chris said, it is hard to get reliable figures on number of speakers. Even in the case of Esperanto, the estimations vary from some 100,000 to 6 million! In the case of the few languages that would qualify, why not put them in boldface in the alphabetical list? That's what some of the other language editions of WP do.
I don't know if you have read and/or contributed to WP:CONLANG, but there has been a large discussion about all this, including a straw poll. Although there has been quite some opposition against this poll, I still believe it is a useful way of gathering opinions, so notwithstanding the tag that should prevent you from adding something, I'd still encourage you to do so.
As for the other proposed subcategories: keep in mind that # of speakers is not the only criterion that can make a language notable. One case in point: Interglossa.
Anyway, you're both invited to WikiProject Constructed languages. I'd especially ask you to give some input about the list of "sollicited articles" on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Constructed languages; in my opinion, we should avoid asking for articles that wouldn't survive an AfD later on. —IJzeren Jan In mij legge alle fogultjes een ij 07:52, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
You yourself stated in a post above that it would be a good idea to group conlangs. The groupings I suggest here are broad and effective without being cumbersome. All in the first group are major conlangs...as you say there are just six or seven. The second group contains conlangs of some merit as they are more or less fully described. The last group captures the rest...no one is left out. This arrangement is simple and it enables people (like myself) looking for information to find it without getting mired down in conlangs of little distinction. There may be better solutions, but until one is employed, why not employ this one? No information is lost and organization is gained. Gavin
Yes, you're right, I wasn't fully awake yet! ;) And I agree that some sort of subdivision wouldn't hurt. Anyway, I still have a problem with the no. of speakers at peak. It's a criterion that is extremely hard to apply. Take for example Fasile, which claims 500 speakers. Personally, I don't believe that, and so do many others, but should we therefore redirect it to the minor languages? I don't think so. I think the easiest way to go would be a two-way distinction between "major" and "minor" languages. And I think we should be tolerant with both: languages like Solresol, Glosa and Novial IMO would definitely count as major languages, even though I don't know if they ever had more than 100 speakers. Like I proposed, we can always represent the languages of which we know for sure that they have/had more than 100 speakers in boldface. As for the "minor" section, I think it could also include languages (like Progressiva f.ex.) that are perhaps not significant enough to warrant an article on their own, but that are at least important enough to be included in a list. BTW, whatever subdivision we should go for, it shouldn't conflict too much with the current subdivision between spoken - controlled - visual; if we turn it into a subdivision spoken (major) - spoken (minor) - controlled - visual, we already make it complicated enough for the average editor. ;) —IJzeren Jan In mij legge alle fogultjes een ij 09:47, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Leetspeak

Shouldn't Leet be listed into this article? Best regards --surueña 16:11, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Under "Language games", maybe?--Chris 16:47, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
I suppose yes (I don't have much knowledge about constructed languages). If the section is renamed to "Secret languages" it would be clearer the purpose of Leetspeak, however "language games" is better to describe some of the others (anyway, AFAIK their purpose is secrecy too). --surueña 17:47, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
Who constructed Leet? Feel free to prove me wrong, but I would say nobody. It "naturally evolved as part of a culture" rather than being "specifically devised by an individual or small group", so calling it a constructed language contradicts our own definition in that article. I've removed it. (And I've half a mind to remove some other language games for the very same reason, but I'll deal with this some other time.) EldKatt (Talk) 09:57, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fictional languages -- how many are legitimate?

How many of the Fictional languages listed are actual 'constructed languages like Tolkien's Quenya and Sindarin, and how many are just names for fictional languages that have no content behind them or imitations of language that are actually ad hoc gibberish? I'm thinking that we should restrict the list to cases that have some claim to be actual linguistic artifacts.--Chris 13:28, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I fully agree. I'm observing the current wildgrowth with mixed feelings, but in all honestly, I don't know enough about most of those newly added languages to be able to separate the "real" languages from the ad hoc gibberish and languages that are hardly anything but a name. Any ideas about how to weed those out? —IJzeren Jan In mij legge alle fogultjes een ij 11:29, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
I agree, there is a clear difference between Sindarin, which has a proper grammar and can be spoken, and Parseltongue which is simply described as 'hissing' and is always translated to English when spoken. [anonymous comment]
The only course I can think of is to ask each of the editors who've added one of these obscure langs about the lang's status: how extensive is the corpus? (complete texts? single words? just the bare language name?), has the author provided a grammar, or has someone reconstructed one? I'd say a bare name doesn't qualify, but perhaps a sample word does -- not a conclusion I'm happy to draw, but otherwise we'd get into an arbitrary line-drawing exercise.--CJGB (Chris) 12:46, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Major-Minor thing

It seems to me that Lingua Franca Nova has more speakers than say, Occidental, but Occidental is considered major and LFN minor. Can someone explain?Cameron Nedland 19:43, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Occidental is historically much more significant than LFN. In its heyday, it undoubtedly had more speakers than LFN does now. Its rise to prominence in the 1920s effectively ended Ido's period of expansion; it was also a strong influence on the considerations of International Auxiliary Language Association, which produced several model languages explicitly inspired by Occ. The rivalry between Occ. and Interlingua was a major theme in interlinguistics during the 1950s and 60s.
There's nothing comparable for LFN. Still, if I were to promote one of the minor langs to the "major" category, LFN would likely be my first choice.--CJGB (Chris) 12:53, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Okay, thanks.Cameron Nedland 03:24, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
Personally, I wouldn't object against moving LFN from Minor to Major. —IJzeren Jan Uszkiełtu? 09:24, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
I'd like to see some more evidence for its notability first. I'm thinking, though, of downgrading Idiom Neutral, which though influential in some ways, was never much than a club effort.--CJGB (Chris) 20:29, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I think the categorization of major-minor is a bit too subjective to be useful. These subsections should probably be merged. MFNickster 03:48, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

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