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Glossopoeia Pages


Welcome to the Glossopoeia pages

Introduction
Glossopoeia /glɒsə'piːə/ is the construction of fictional languages; such languages are commonly known today as "conlangs" (← construtted langages). Probably the most well known are Esperanto, Klingon and J.R.R. Tolkien's elvish languages, Sindarin and Quenya. But ever since the 16th century, at least, quite literally hundreds - possibly now thousands - of these have been created by enthusiastic glossopoeists or "conlangers."

At one time I was much involved with the online word of conlanging; but one of the problems with being a polymath is that one has too many interests and as I get older I would like more time to follow up some of these rather more than I have been doing. Britainese, however, is still an ongoing project and I have been persuaded to revive the briefscript project; from time to time I add to the Outidic lexicon. But work on TAKE has probably ceased and Dee ("Plan D") has been abandoned.

I am keeping the pages online for those interested or who may wish to follow up any of the ideas contained in them (Note, however, that in order to read these pages correctly, you need a Unicode compliant browser and a font which supports IPA and Greek characters).

Below are brief descriptions of what follows on the other pages.
 

About the Glossopoeia & Glossopoeic Languages page
This page gives the origin of the term "glossopoeia" and discusses the different types of glossopoeic languages, defining them broadly in terms of:
  • auxlangs (artificial auxiliary languages)
  • artlangs, i.e. art-languages as defined by J.R.R. Tolkien, namely languages which are not concerned with "base considerations of the 'practical', the easiest for the 'modern mind', or for the million - only a question of taste, a satisfaction of personal pleasure, a private sense of fitness."
  • engelangs, i.e. engineered languages which are designed to specific objective criteria, and engineered to meet those criteria.
About the Britainese pages
Britainese grew out of discussion on the Conlang list of February 2013 on the creation of "altlangs", i.e. languages in an alternative timeline, and subsequent discussion on private emails. It is a work in (slow) progress, in the familiar field of Romance languages.
About the Outidic pages
Outidic in many ways is a spin off from TAKE (see below). It is a fictional Greek-based 16th century auxlang, which I began work on in the Spring of 2012. Unlike TAKE, however, Outidic could well have existed in our world without affecting history one little bit.

Why did I create it? Unlike TAKE, Plan D or the Briefscript Project (or even Britainrese), Outidic was created purely for fun. This project can be regarded as complete in that it all the eponymous Dr Outis produced.

About the Briefscript Project pages
This 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, before branching off into two different directions known as BrScA and BrScB. In 2005, these abbreviations were dropped: BrSc became a generic term 'briefscript', BrScA became Bax and BrScB became Brx. Work was discontinued on Brx, and Bax was developed as Piashi before being abandoned in 2009.

In August 2011, however, the Briefscript Project was revived; but development on Brx virtually ground to a halt in May 2012 and the language was formally abandoned in April 2013. However, in January 2019 I was persuaded by some of my Conlang colleagues to revive the briefscript project and, accordingly, Brx (Pulushi) has now been revived.

About the TAKE (Το ῎Ανευ Κλίσι ῾Ελληνική) pages
TAKE grew out of a discussion on the Conlang list of February 2006 on what ancient Greek might be like if stripped of its inflexions in a manner similar to Giuseppe Peano's Latino sine Flexione.

It began as a fictional auxlang in an alternative time-line in which there had been no Roman Empire and no Romance languages and where Greek had become the dominant language; but this also made important differences in the development of the two worlds and I had no desire to create an alternate 2000+ years of history. So TAKE became simply a intellectual exercise in producing an analytic language from a fusional language such as Ancient Greek.

Although it the syntax could be developed further, the language has been developed enough to give some sample translations. I shall not myself be developing it further.

About the Dee ("Plan D")? pages
This project was intended as a loglang after a discussion on the Conlang list in September 2005 about Jeff Prothero's 'Plan B' and Jacques Guy's satirical Cee. However, it became apparent to me, at least, that Jacques Guy's observations were entirely justified and that any reform of 'Plan B' would make the whole thing collapse; as the old nursery rhyme goes: "A, B, C, tumble-down D."
Dee ("Plan D") was not so much abandoned; rather it simply collapsed.

Appendix: A Few Conlang Resources


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