A Brief History of Constructed Languages: Esperanto to Elvish

A Brief History of Constructed Languages: Esperanto to Elvish

The human impulse to invent new languages is ancient and widespread. From medieval mystics to Oxford professors to Hollywood linguists, people have been deliberately constructing languages for over 900 years. Here's the history.

The Medieval Roots: Hildegard of Bingen

The earliest documented constructed language is the Lingua Ignota (Unknown Language) created by Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), a German abbess, mystic, and polymath. Hildegard invented approximately 900 words and a partial grammar for purposes that remain somewhat mysterious — perhaps for communication within her religious community, perhaps as a spiritual exercise, perhaps as a form of artistic creation.

The Lingua Ignota is remarkable not just for its age but for its completeness: Hildegard also created a modified script (Litterae Ignotae) to write it. This combination of invented language and invented writing system anticipates what Tolkien would do 800 years later.

The Philosophical Languages of the 17th Century

The Scientific Revolution prompted a wave of constructed language projects. Thinkers like Francis Lodwick, Cave Beck, John Wilkins, and Gottfried Leibniz attempted to create "philosophical languages" — logical systems in which every word would reflect the nature of what it named.

Wilkins' Essay Towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language (1668) was the most ambitious, attempting to categorize all knowledge and give every concept a systematic notation. These projects were intellectually fascinating but practically unlearnable — their systematic logic made them memorably terrible as actual communication tools.

The 19th Century: International Languages

Growing trade, industrialization, and cultural exchange in the 19th century made the need for an international language feel urgent. This produced several serious attempts:

Volapük (1879), created by Johann Martin Schleyer, was the first international auxiliary language to gain significant use. At its peak in the 1880s, it had hundreds of clubs and thousands of speakers. Its complex grammar ultimately defeated widespread adoption.

Esperanto (1887), created by Polish ophthalmologist L.L. Zamenhof, succeeded where Volapük failed. Designed explicitly for ease of learning — regular grammar, no exceptions, logical vocabulary — Esperanto built a genuine international community that persists today with an estimated 1-2 million speakers. It's the most successful constructed language in history by any measure of actual use.

Ido, Interlingua, and others followed throughout the early 20th century as critics of Esperanto proposed reformed versions. None achieved Esperanto's reach.

Tolkien: The Artist's Approach

J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) transformed what constructed languages could be. Where 19th-century conlangers were trying to solve a practical problem (international communication), Tolkien was pursuing an artistic and personal vision.

Beginning around 1910 and continuing for the rest of his life, Tolkien developed his Elvish languages — Quenya, Sindarin, and a family of related dialects — with the same care a historical linguist brings to studying natural language families. He documented sound changes, created etymological roots, wrote poetry, composed songs, and embedded the languages in a complete mythology.

Tolkien's insight was that language and culture are inseparable. A language is only beautiful if it carries a world behind it. This principle has influenced every serious conlang creator since.

The Entertainment Age: Klingon to Dothraki

The late 20th and early 21st centuries brought professional conlang creation into entertainment:

Klingon (1984, Marc Okrand) — The first widely publicized complete language created for a film/TV property. Its success inspired the field.

Na'vi (2009, Paul Frommer) — Created for Avatar, demonstrating that studios would invest in quality language creation.

Dothraki (2009) and High Valyrian (2012, David J. Peterson) — Created for Game of Thrones, showing that television could support multiple complete constructed languages.

The Community Age

Today, constructed language creation is a recognized profession and a vibrant hobby. The Language Creation Society connects creators worldwide. Online platforms like Tengwar make the greatest fictional languages learnable to anyone with an internet connection.

The history continues to be written.

Related Reading

• The Best Fictional Languages Ever Created (and How to Learn Them)
• Do Fictional Languages Teach Real Linguistic Skills?
• The Hardest Fictional Languages to Learn, Ranked

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