The Palgrave Handbook of Constructed Languages

This handbook represents the first structured, academic overview of constructed languages, including not only well-known examples like Esperanto and Klingon, but also those created for educational, philosophical and communication purposes. Divided into parts covering engineered languages, auxiliary languages, artistic languages, constructed languages in education, and constructed languages in psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic research, the volume brings together experts and leading scholars from a wide array of fields to provide an in-depth overview of this dynamic and growing field.

Constructed languages are becoming increasingly popular, and the development of the internet has allowed people across the world to share their ideas and meet in like-minded online forums. This handbook will therefore be of interest not only to Linguists, Educationalists, and Film, Media and Literature specialists, but also constructed language creators and enthusiasts.

Part I: A Divine Language.- Greening Language: The Spiritual Semiosis of Hildegard of Bingen’s Lingua Ignota.- Part II: Engineered Languages.- Creating an Authentic Alternate History via Glossopoesis: The Case of Outros 500.- Logical and Taxonomic Languages.- Part III: Auxiliary Languages.- Interslavic.- Guosa: A Common Language for the Economic Community of West African States.- Part IV: Artistic Languages.- Conlangs in Literature and Their Usefulness towards Realism.- The Value of Conlangs to Visual Media.- Between the Art and the Science: A Reflection on Creating a Language for the BBC’s Adaptation of The City and The City.- Conlangs in Graphic Print Media       .- Conlangs in Video and Table-Top Gaming.- Conlangs and Fine Art: Music.- Part V: Constructed Languages in the Academy and as Sources of Data.- Experiences with Conlangs in a Brazilian School: Pursuing Linguistic Literacy.- The Role of Conlangs in Higher Education.- Parisot’s Taensa Grammar: Revisiting the First Scientific Hoax in Linguistics.- Conlangs in Theoretical Linguistics.- Conlangs in Typological Research.- Constructed Language and Constructed Languages in Language Acquisition Studies: Similarities and Differences between Natural, Lab, and Artificial Languages.- Part VI: Constructed Languages and Sociolinguistics.- Conlangs and Language Documentation Shared Practices.- Creating Social Meaning through Sound Symbolism and Aesthetics in Constructed Languages.

Joseph W. Windsor is a Knowledge Translator in the Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary, Canada. He has created more than a dozen constructed languages professionally, has published on the L2 acquisition of Klingon stress, has organised four international Language Creation Conferences, and is a Past President of the international not-for-profit Language Creation Society.

Alison Long is a Lecturer in Languages at Keele University, UK. She created the Illitan language for the BBC’s adaptation of China Mieville’s The City and the City, acted as a language consultant for Sky’s Intergalactic, and is currently working on two further languages for a production company in Los Angeles.