by Arika Okrent
A priori:
Luftlandana (Larsson, 1893)
Ri napa luft byser hinsko. Napa ri spru freiste naj bar johrajb.
“We have invented a new language. We have seven moments of rest daily.”
MIXED:
Bolak, La Langue Bleue (Bollack, 1899)
Ak vop sfermed pro spes maned, if om pobl to pobl, ne ei mnoka pfo an am lank.
“What an immense advantage for mankind, if from people to people we could communicate through the same language.”
A POSTERIORI:
Medial (Weisbart, 1922)
Un Englo, un Franco ed tin Deuto havit le taske pintir kamele. Le Englo voyajit ad Afrike for studiir (e kamele in tisui doimie, le Franco gidit al zoologi jarden, ed le Deuto pintit on kamelo ex le profunde de sui psyke.
“An Englishman, a Frenchman, and a German were supposed to paint a camel. The Englishman traveled to Africa to study the camel in its habitat. The Frenchman went to the zoo, and the German painted a camel out of the depth of his psyche.”
THE LORD'S PRAYER
One of the most commonly translated passages is the Lord's Prayer. For comparison, here are the first few lines in a variety of languages:
Scriptura Oecumenica (Carpophorophilus, 1732)
O baderus noderus ki du esso in seluma, fakdade sankadus ha nominanda duus, adfenade ha rennanda duus, ha folanda duus, fiassade felud in seluma, sik koke in derra.
Communicationssprache (Schipfer, 1839)
No Pera, wia ete Cielu, ta Noma sanctiferii, ta Royoma Ais arrivii; ta volonta färerii com Cielu änsi Terru.
Volapük (Schleyer, 1879)
O Fat obas, kel binol in süls, paisaludomöz nem ola! Komomöd monargän ola! Jenomöz vil olik, as in sül, i su tal!
Weltsprache (Volk and Fuchs, 1883)
Not pater, vel sas in les cöles, ton nomen sanctöt, ton regnon venät, ton voluntat söt vam in le cöl, tarn in le ter.
Pasilingua (Steiner, 1885)
Patro miso, quo er in coela, nama tüa sanctore, kingdoma tüa kommire, tila willu fairore sur erda ut in coela.
Spelin (Bauer, 1888)
Pat isel, ka bi ni sielos! Nom el zi bi santed! Klol el zi komi! Vol el zi bi faked, kefe ni siel, efe su sium!
Lingua Komun (Kürschner, 1900)
Padre nose kuale tu ese in cielo, sante esa tue nómine; vena imperio tue; voluntá tue esa fate sur tera komo in cielo.
Idiom Neutral (Rosenberger, 1902)
Nostr patr kel es in sieli! Ke votr nom es sanktifiked; ke votr regnia veni; ke votr volu es fasied, kuale in siel, tale et su ter.
Spokil (Nicolas, 1904)
Mael nio kui vai o les zeal, aepenso lezai tio mita; veze lezai tio tsaeleda; feleno lezai tio bela, uti o zeal itu o geol.
Pan-Kel (Wald, 1906)
Sai Fat in sky, y sanu so nam; so land komu; so viy apsu up glob 1 sky.
Ulla (Greenwood, 1906)
Vus Patra hoo este n ciela, sankted este dus noma, dus rexdoma vene, dus desira esta färed n terra als tu este n ciela.
Nepo (Tscheschichin, 1913)
Vatero nia, kotoryja estas in la njeboo, heiliga estu nomo via; kommenu regneo via; estu volonteo via, jakoe in la njeboo, ebene soe na la erdeo.
Viva (Nesmeyanov, 1913)
Patr no ki es en ska, santanu to im, komu to regn, makru to vil ut en ska it on ge.
Q⊚smianˇ (Beatty, 1922)
Mems patro qwe esip ir celestii, tom nomini a santiflcatap, tom regni venap, tom voliti fiatap aq ir celestii taleq or terri.
Novam (Touflet, 1928)
Patro nia que es nel sieli, vua nomo santificeveu, vua regno adveneu, vua volo fareveu sur il tero quale nel sielo.
Interglossa (Hogben, 1943)
Na Parenta in Urani: Na dicte volo; tu Nomino gene revero; Plus tu Crati habe accido; plus u Demo acte harmono tu Tendo epi Geo homo in urani.
Mary da (Máriás, 1946)
Muy patra, ka jan en colay, santages tu noma, alvene tu regna, ages tu vola cel en cöla ey en tera.
Zamalo (Alting, 1966)
Jia padro,θiu estu in la cielo, saqtata estu wia nomom, venu wia regnom, oquru wia wolom na la tero, qiel in la cielo.
THE BABEL TEXT
These days, the inventors who create their languages for fun and art prefer to translate the story of Babel.
Verdurian (Rosenfelder, 1995)
Then they said: “Come, let us build a town and a tower, whose top will reach the heavens; and let us get ourselves glory, so that we are not scattered across all the earth.”
Teonaht (Higley, 1998)
And they said: “Come! A city and tower let us build so that its head reaches to Heaven. And ourselves let us name, so that we get not throughout the earth our scattering.”
Brithenig (Smith, 1996)
Then they said, “Come, let us build a city for ourselves, with a tower that touches the heavens, that we make a name for ourselves and are not scattered over the face of the entire land.”
Kēlen (Sotomayor, 1998)
And they said to each other: We should make a city that has a tower that reaches to the heavens. And they said to each other: We should make our name so that we do not become scattered far among the world.
Skerre (Ball, 1999)
Next, they said, “We should build a city and a tower that can go up to the sky so that our name will be remembered before we might be scattered to the entire surface of the world.”
Rokbeigalmki (Belsky, 1997)
and they said “hey! we'll build for ourselves a village, and a tower (lit. house of tallness) that its head in the heavens will [be], and we'll make for ourselves a name—so that we will not be scattered over the surface of the entire land.”
Megdevi (Peterson, 2001)
And said they, “Onward! Let's for ourselves a city build and a tower, which it the head of in the clouds will be, and at that time, we for ourselves famous reputations will have, lest we should be scattered throughout the whole Earth the face of.”
Toki Pona (Kisa, 2001)
person many say this: o come! we many o work earth build building long object tall, head belonging to long object in above air o name belonging to we many come big! we want not this: we many possible not we many in land all.
Ithkuil (Quijada, 1995)
Then they said let's make a town and a tower with its top part in the sky thereby potentially gaining notoriety and respect for ourselves lest we end up scattered across the face of this world.
Tepa (Elzinga, 1995)
and we will build ourselves a pueblo whose top will reach to the sky; and we will be famous if we are scattered sometime throughout the region.
Ceqli (May, 1996)
and letter-pronoun-j past speak, “invite come!—I-you future build one city, and one tower and letter-pronoun-t separator-particle top which is-located-in sky. And you-I future have-become fame-name for-prevent that I-you passive spread-throw to all-place which is-located-in the world.”
More samples of invented languages can be found at intheland ofinventedlanguages.com.
NOTES
Much of the information in this book comes from my own reporting. As much as I could, I have consulted the original works of the language inventors I discuss. The Library of Congress has a good collection of artificial languages, as does Princeton University and the University of Chicago. For the biographical information on Bliss, Weilgart, and Brown, I am indebted to the friends and family members who allowed me to interview them. They were incredibly open with me about memories that were sometimes painful for them. I am also grateful to the people who had the foresight to allow their basements and attics to be taken over by piles of documents for years, so that I could one day come along and dig through them. In this regard Shirley McNaughton, Bob LeChevalier, and Andrea Patten have provided me with indispensable help.
But, of course, I have also relied heavily on the work of others. What follows is a list of some of the secondary sources I have consulted and some suggestions for further reading.
General books about invented languages:
Umberto Eco, The Search for the Perfect Language (Blackwell, 1995).
Andrew Large, The Artificial Language Movement (Blackwell, 1985).
Marina Yaguello, Lunatic Lovers of Language: Imaginary Languages and Their Inventors (Athlone Press, 1991).
NINE HUNDRED LANGUAGES, NINE HUNDRED YEARS
For more about Hildegard von Bingen, see:
Sarah L. Higley, Hildegard of Bingen's Unknown Language: An Edition, Translation, and Discussion (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).
The story of Joseph Schipfer comes from:
Norbert Michel, “Joseph Schipfer—Träumer oder Humanist?” Beiträge
zur Wallufer Ortsgeschichte 1 (1993).
Information about Vela and Ben Prist is from:
Alan Libert, Mixed Artificial Languages (Lincom Europa, 2003).
JOHN WILKINS AND THE LANGUAGE OF TRUTH
Eco's book is particularly focused on this time period and contains a great deal of information about the historical background of the seventeenth-century language movement. Other books I have consulted for this section include:
Florian Cajori, A History of Mathematical Notations (The Open Court Publishing Company, 1928–29).
R. J. Craik, Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty (1611—1660): Adventurer, Polymath, and Translator of Rabelais (Mellen Research University Press, 1993).
David Cram and Jaap Maat, George Dalgarno on Universal Language: The Art of Signs (1661), The Deaf and Dumb Man's Tutor (1680), and the Unpublished Papers (Oxford University Press, 2001).
James Knowlson, Universal Language Schemes in England and France,1600–1800 (University of Toronto Press, 1975).
Barbara J. Shapiro, John Wilkins, 1614–1672: An Intellectual Biography(University of California Press, 1969).
Joseph L. Subbiondo, John Wilkins and 17th-Century British Linguistics (John Benjamins, 1992).
LUDWIK ZAMENHOF AND THE LANGUAGE OF PEACE
For a very entertaining account of Solresol, see:
Paul Collins, NOTES Banvard's Folly: Thirteen Tales of Renowned Obscurity, Famous Anonymity, and Rotten Luck (Picador USA, 2001).
This book also tells the story of George Psalmanazar, who in the early eighteenth century made up a language to perpetuate a hoax where he pretended to be a native of Formosa, and gave lectures all over Europe about his made-up exotic culture.
On Esperanto, see:
Marjorie Boulton, Zamenhof, Creator of Esperanto (Routledge and Paul,1960).
Peter G. Forster, The Esperanto Movement (Mouton, 1982).
Wendy Heller, Lidia: The Life of Lidia Zamenhof, Daughter of Esperanto(George Ronald, 1985).
Pierre Janton, Esperanto Language, Literature, and Community (State University of New York Press, 1993).
Don Harlow maintains a very informative Web book about Esperanto at donh.best.vwh.net/esperanto.php.
On Hebrew, see:
Jack Fellman, The Revival of a Classical Tongue: Eliezer Ben Yehuda and the Modern Hebrew Language (Mouton, 1973).
Shlomo Izre'el, “The Emergence of Spoken Israeli Hebrew,” in Corpus Linguistics and Modern Hebrew: Towards the Compilation of the Corpus of Spoken Israeli Hebrew (CoSIH), edited by Benjamin H. Hary (Tel Aviv University, 2003).
CHARLES BLISS AND THE LANGUAGE OF SYMBOLS
On the rise of English and an analysis of how a language comes to world prominence, see:
David Crystal, English as a Global Language (Cambridge University Press,1997).
Nicholas Ostler, Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World(HarperCollins, 2005).
For information about Elias Molee, see:
Marvin Slind, “Elias Molee and ‘Alteutonic’: A Norwegian-Americans ‘Universal Language,’” Norwegian-American Studies (forthcoming).
Molee's papers are held at the Norwegian-American Historical Association, St. Olaf College.
On the strange, strange life of Edmund Shaftesbury, see:
Janet Six, “Hidden History of Ralston Heights,” Archaeology, May/June 2004.
For some good stories about Ogden, see:
J. R. L. Anderson and P. Sargant Florence, C. K. Ogden: A Collective Memoir (Elek, 1977).
K. E. Garay, “Empires of the Mind? C. K. Ogden, Winston Churchill, and Basic English,” Historical Papers, Communications Historiques (1988), pp. 280–91.
The hieroglyphic example comes from:
Florian Coulmas, The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems (Black-well, 1996).
On how Chinese writing really works, see:
John DeFrancis, The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy (University of Hawaii Press, 1984).
For a good introduction to the linguistics of sign languages, see: Edward S. Klima and Ursula Bellugi, The Signs of Language (Harvard University Press, 1979).
On Gestuno, see:
Bill Moody, “International Sign: A Practitioner's Perspective,” Journal of Interpretation (2002), pp. 1–47.
If you'd like to see Bliss in action, the 1974 film Mr. Symbol Man, directed by Bruce Moir and Bob Kingsbury, can be ordered from the National Film Board of Canada.
JAMES COOKE BROWN AND THE LANGUAGE OF LOGIC
On Korzybski, see:
Marvin Gardner, Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science (Dover Publications, 1957).
Michael Silverstein, “Modern Prophets of Language,” University of Chicago, MS, 1993.
On Whorf, see:
John E. Joseph, “The Immediate Sources of the ‘Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis,’” Historiographia Linguistica 23, no. 3 (1996), pp. 365–404.
Penny Lee, The Whorf Theory Complex: A Critical Reconstruction (John Benjamins, 1996).
John Lucy, Language Diversity and Thought: A Reformulation of the Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis (Cambridge University Press, 1992).
Michael Silverstein, “Whorfianism and the Linguistic Imagination of Nationality,” in Regimes of Language: Ideologies, Polities, and Identities, edited by Paul Kroskrity (School of American Research Press, 2000).
For an interesting book about ideas and ownership, see:
Ben Klemens, Math You Can't Use: Patents, Copyright, and Software (Brookings Institution Press, 2006).
Lojban information, including learning materials and grammars, can be found at www.lojban.org.
THE KLINGONS, THE CONLANGERS,
AND THE ART OF LANGUAGE
The study of native Esperanto speakers referred to in the discussion of irregularity is:
Benjamin K. Bergen, “Nativization Processes in L1 Esperanto,” Journal of Child Language 28 (2001), pp. 575–95.
The story of Sebeok's analysis of the nuclear waste problem is in Eco's book. Sebeok's actual report, “Communication Measures to Bridge Ten Millennia” (1984), can be ordered from the National Technical Information Service (www.ntis.gov).
Information about Tolkien comes from:
Humphrey Carpenter, J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography (Houghton Mifflin,1977).
Descriptions and histories of many conlangs can be found at www.langmaker.com.
APPENDIX A: THE LIST OF LANGUAGES
This list of languages is mostly culled from:
Aleksandr Dulichenko, Mezhdunarodnye vspomogatel'nye iazyki (International Auxiliary Languages) (Valgus, 1990).
This book is at the Library of Congress and a few university libraries.
Dulichenko, in turn, has culled from:
Louis Couturat and Léopold Leau, Histoire de la langue universelle (Hachette, 1903).
At many university libraries.
Ernest Drezen, Historio de la mondolingvo (Ekrelo, 1931).
Very hard to find.
Marcel Monnerot-Dumaine, Précis d'interlinguistique générate et spéciale(Librairie Maloine, 1960).
Held at many university libraries.
Petr Stojan, Bibliografio de internacia lingvo (Universala Esperanto-Asocio, 1929).