Artificial languages
A constructed language or conlang is a language for communication between humans (i.e. not with or between computers) which, unlike most languages that naturally emerge from human interaction, is devised by a person or group for a particular purpose. The term constructed language is often shortened to conlang and, as a relatively broad term, it encompasses subcategories including: fictional, artificial, engineered, planned and invented languages. Conlangs may include aspects reminiscent of natural language including phonology, grammar, orthography, and vocabulary. Interlinguistics includes the study of constructed languages.
Translate in Artificial languages ↗A constructed language or conlang is a language for communication between humans (i.e. not with or between computers) which, unlike most languages that naturally emerge from human interaction, is devised by a person or group for a particular purpose. The term constructed language is often shortened to conlang and, as a relatively broad term, it encompasses subcategories including: fictional, artificial, engineered, planned and invented languages. Conlangs may include aspects reminiscent of natural language including phonology, grammar, orthography, and vocabulary. Interlinguistics includes the study of constructed languages.
International
Present-day use
The captured source does not contain a separate current-use account.
Origins
The captured article does not contain a separate origins section. See the historical account and linked source.
Development
Most modern developers, called conlangers, create constructed languages as a hobby, for a fictional work, or for personal fulfillment. Conlangers typically create languages by defining their language's phonology, syntax, grammar, and other properties. Doing so requires at least a rudimentary understanding of linguistics. Various papers on constructed languages were published from the 1970s through the 1990s, such as Glossopoeic Quarterly, Taboo Jadoo, and The Journal of Planned Languages. The Conlang Mailing List was founded in 1991, and later split off an AUXLANG mailing list dedicated to international auxiliary languages. In the early to mid-1990s, a few constructed language-related zines were published as email or websites, such as Vortpunoj and Model Languages. The Conlang Mailing List has developed a community of conlangers with its own customs, such as translation challenges and translation relays, and its own terminology. Sarah Higley reports from results of her surveys that the demographics of the Conlang list are primarily men from North America and western Europe, with a smaller number from Oceania, Asia, the Middle East, and South America, with an age range from 13 to over 60; the number of women participating has increased over time. Later online communities include the Zompist Bulletin Board (ZBB; since 2001) and the Conlanger Bulletin Board. Discussion on these forums includes presentation of members' constructed languages and feedback from other members, discussion of natural languages, whether particular features of constructed languages have natural language precedents, and how interesting features of natural languages can be repurposed for constructed languages, posting of interesting short texts as translation challenges, and meta-discussion about the philosophy of developing constructed languages, conlangers' purposes, and whether the creation of constructed languages is an art or a hobby.
Writing
Latin or customary script (catalog classification; see the source for context).
Beyond the typeface.
Signs, manuscripts, published pages and contextual photographs, with their place, period, source and reuse terms. Captions identify historical spellings, regional examples, community references and character imagery.
A page from a Lojban publication. Lojban is one example in the constructed-language collection; “Artificial languages” is a category, not one spoken language. First page of the Lojban translation of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, dated 2011 on Commons. This is a rendered page of a digitally typeset publication, not a photograph of a physical book.
Saved in Babelbook · resized display copy. Select the image to open it independently of its source.
la .lojbangirz. · Source ↗Public domain (author release) ↗View the local visual field note
This constructed-language or category entry has no geographic reference points in the collection.
Reference & context ↗Babelbook · original editorial illustration · Babelbook original illustration
Source excerpts, selected, shortened and where noted editorially corrected from Constructed language by Wikipedia contributors. Retrieved 2026-10-05. CC BY-SA 4.0. These excerpts are not an independently verified scholarly history; missing accounts are identified above.