Esperanto, Klingon, Sindarin and Other Constructed Languages

Inventing fictional languages used to the domain of science fiction and fantasy authors and the person responsible for developing Esperanto. It is certain that when British author J.R.R. Tolkein developed Sindarin as the Elven language, he certainly did not expect anyone to actually learn to speak it. Today it has a core of geeky followers who wonder why no words for "core dump" exist in the language. Tolkien is not around to answer the question, but my guess would be that the Elven natives of Middle Earth would have no need to develop this word. For the determined who wish to speak like Tolkein's elves, Sindarin tutorials can be downlo

When Star Trek: the Next Generation caused people to become fascinated with the fictoinal Klingon culture represented by Michael Dorn's character Worf, a slew of Klingon related books appeared on the Market, including my favorite: Conversational Klingon. And a few years a go, a translator and student created a simple language consisting of 120 words to help her through her own emotions during a time of depression in her life, Sonja Elen Kisa invited "toki pona" which simply meant "good language."

The language helped her work through her own thought in a way more complex languages such as English or Esperanto could not, but much to her own surprise the language took off and has about one hundred speakers currently and a few poets and song writers working within the limits of the language.

Kisa's invented language is just one of a few that can be found on a website called langmaker.com which lists the various "constructed languages" known to their site alphabetically. Conlang enthusiasts, which they refer to themselves as do not pretend their languages are a supplement for the real thing and perhaps oddly enough, the most famous conlanger, J.R.R. Tolkien had his works emerge simply because the languages he invented needed speakers.

While Esperanto may be the best known example of a constructed language with approximately two million speakers it is by no means alone. Stats on Klingon native speakers are not available at the present time and until subspace communications are developed, the figure is likely to remain unknown for the foreseeable future. In the meantime, constructed languages are a tool of the hobbiest and linguist to better understand how real world languages can develop over time. Constructed languages, such as Klingon which has no words for "park your car" can also show how the same ideas can carry subtly different images. The Klingon speakers that do exist are instead limited to "docking their vehicles."

Sources:

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-conlang24aug24,0,6283512.story?coll=la-home-center

www.langmaker.com