Welcome to the Glossopoeia pages

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[Categories of Conlangs] [The "Conlang Triangle"] [What my pages contain] [Some Conlang Resources]

Glossopoeia /glɒsə'piə/ is derived from the Greek word γλῶσσα (glôssa = 'tongue, language') and the root ποιε- (poie- = to make, to create). In fact the word γλωσσοποιΐα itself (Latinized as 'glossopoeia') did exist in ancient Greek with the meaning of 'making of mouth-pieces', since one of the derived meaning of glôssa was the reed or mouth-piece of woodwind instruments.

However, the Greek word 'glossopoeia' was, so to speak, brought back to life last century with the meaning of "language creation" to denote the creation, invention, divising, compiling (or whatever other term may be used) of those languages known variously as artificial languages, planned languages, modeled languages or constructed languages. They are languages whose phonology, grammar and vocabulary are devised by an individual or small group. On the Internet they are commonly known as Conlangs ← con(structed) lang(uage)s; that is term I shall use here.

Categories of Conlangs

There are broadly speaking three categories of conlangs:

artlangs ← art lang(uage)s:,
- are languages constructed for the sake constructing them (i.e. art for art's sake). The examples most widely known are the languages of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" and Dr Marc Okrand's 'Klingon'. Artlangs are very often, though not always, associated with a fictional culture (a 'conculture').
auxlangs ← aux(iliary) lang(uage)s:
- languages intended to serve as a means of communication between peoples of different nations who do not share a common language. Such languages have been created since the 17th century, at least, and are stlll being created. The one whose name is best known to the general public is Esperanto, invented by Dr Dr. Ludovic Lazarus Zamenhof who was born into 19th century Russian Poland. Some of these languages are very interesting from a design and/or linguistic point of view; indeed, some, such as Solresol, have very unusual features. However, I have very much the same misgivings about the concept of artificial auxiliary languages as those expressed by Rick Harrison in his "farewell to auxiliary languages". Those who want to find out more about such languages will find much of interest in James Chandler's "International Auxiliary Languages" page.
engelangs ← eng(ineered) lang(uage)s:
- languages that are designed to specific objective criteria, and modeled to meet those criteria. They will sometimes be of an experimental nature, such Tom Breton's 'AllNoun' (1990) which was an attempt to create a language with only one part of speech, or R. Srikanth's 'Lin' which was designed to achieve maximum spatial compactness - for example 'the (human) being sees the interesting book' can be translated into Lin as h v i2b. An important subset of engelangs are those known as loglangs [← log(ical) lang(uage)s] which are designed to implement formal logic. The most well known of these are James Cook Brown's 'Loglan' and the Logical Language Group's 'Lojban'. An interesting list of engelangs is given by Garret Jones (Garrett actually calls them 'Logical Languages', but many of them are not loglangs as they do not implement formal logic).

The "Conlang Triangle"

In practice, while some languages fit neatly into one of these three categories, many conlangs do not fit so neatly. For example, Claudio Gnoli wrote, concerning his conlang 'Liva', "Liva is constructed mainly for fun: at first, it has not any practical aim. It can be seen as an experiment, trying to satisfy both the requirements of logic and the aesthetic preferences of its author" . We see here both artlang elements (...mainly for fun...the aesthetic preferences of its author) as well as engelang elements (...an experiment ... to satisfy the requirements of logic). Indeed, a few years ago Claudio suggested that individual conlangs could be viewed as lying within a triangle, thus:

artlang
auxlang CONLANG TRIANGLE

engelang
(In fact when Claudio suggested the triangle, the term 'engelang' had not been coined and he used 'artlang', 'auxlang' and 'loglang' as the apices of the triangle. But that, in my opinion, is too restrictive.)

What my pages contain

At present in these pages you find information about three ongoing projects:

my 'Briefscript Project' which really began with my learning Speedwords in the 1950s. Over the years the language has undergone various different 'incarnations' under different names. On the Conlang list and one or two other lists it was for a time known as BrSc; the current name is Piashi (actually written ~bax in Piashi itself).
an experimental and, as yet, unnamed loglang which came about after a discussion on the Conlang list in September 2005 about Jeff Prothero's 'Plan B' and Jacques Guy's satirical 'Plan C'.
the το άνευ κλίσι Ελληνικό (TAKE) project which has grown out of a discussion on the Conlang list of February 2006 on what Greek might be like if stripped of its inflexions in the manner similar to Giuseppe Peano's Latino sine Flexione.

Progress on Piashi is stalled at the moment; I am trying to devise its lexicon. Also, it must be admitted, the world has changed a good deal from that of the 1930s and 1940s when Dutton was developing his language. Now in the early years of the 21st century, English, for better or worse, is the de facto international auxiliary language, and there already exist briefscipts for English. Ever since Emma Dearborn ceated Speedwriting about 1924, others have come up with their own systems; also the text-messaging community are developing their own 'abbreviated longhand'. However, having spent so long with the project, it would perhaps be a pity not to see it through.

Work on the unnamed loglang and on TAKE is still ongoing.