5. Newspeak
Newspeak was created by George Orwell for his novel 1984. The book’s totalitarian was in the process of replacing English with Newspeak, intending to eventually wipe out English altogether. Newspeak’s purpose was to ‘narrow the range of thought’: for example, it did not contain the words free or freedom, so the idea of freedom became literally unthinkable. Rather than creating new words, the government aimed to destroy them. Several words from Newspeak like doublethink and ungood have been picked up into English, where they’re usually used to make a point about something that’s considered totalitarian in nature.
4. Enochian
This language appeared in the 16th century in a series of books by astrologer John Dee and seer Edward Kelley. According to Dee, it was the language used by God to create the world, which had gradually ‘devolved’ over time to become the Biblical Hebrew of the Old Testament. Luckily for them, this language was taught to Dee and Kelley by angels. Enochian also came with an alphabet, which Dee and Kelley used to write their books detailing magical practices.
Modern skeptics have since pointed out that Enochian has far more in common grammatically with English than any form of Hebrew. Still, the language became popular again in the 20th century, and it’s still used by some occultists today.
3. E-Prime
Another language constructed to make a philosophical point, E-Prime is simply a version of English that forbids all forms of the verb ‘to be’ (is, was, were, etc). According to Alfred Korzybski, who promoted the language in his 1933 book Science and Sanity, E-Prime can be used to sharpen critical thinking and make ideas clearer. For example, in E-prime a person can’t say ‘This is an awful movie’: it must be rephrased as ‘I dislike this movie.’ ‘You’re wrong’ is also impossible: instead he must say ‘I disagree with you.’ Because of this, it’s easier for speakers and listeners distinguish fact from opinion.
On the other hand, following E-Prime to the letter becomes burdensome: ‘This is a flower’ must become something like ‘English speakers call this a flower.’ Today, E-Prime remains popular, but mostly just as an interesting thought exercise to improve clarity.
2. Esperanto
Esperanto is the most successful international auxiliary language to date, with up to two million speakers worldwide. It was invented in the late 19th century by a Polish doctor, Ludovik Zamenhof, who wanted to end interethnic conflict by providing everyone with a common tongue. Zamenhof’s aim was a language that was simple to learn and politically neutral.
Esperanto gained in popularity after World War I, but it was suppressed in Poland during World War II, and many associations that promoted it, including the League of Nations, did not survive the war. Today, the closest thing we have to the ‘international language’ dreamed of by Zamenhof is the very non-simple, non-neutral English.
1. Klingon
Esperanto may have more speakers, but Klingon is maybe the most famous constructed language if them all. The language of a fictional warrior alien race in the Star Trek movies and TV shows, Klingon was mostly created by a linguist who deliberately added complex rules and sounds that are rare in human languages. Another possible difficulty for anyone wanting to communicate in Klingon is that, as a space-based language, it’s lacking a lot of normal Earth words. For example, there are several different words for ‘fight’, but no word for ‘hello’: the closest Klingon equivalent is ‘What do you want?’
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