In the Land of Invented Languages

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1. nephihahaDec 2025
   Have mostly read novels this year, but when I have read non-fiction it was mostly extracts for my personal research, not necessarily cover to cover.

   I will try to give a wide range:

   * "The New Wild: Why Invasive Species Will Be Nature's Salvation" by Fred Pearce. A very different view of ecosystems.

   * "In the Land of Invented Languages" by Arika Okrent. Very entertaining.

   * "Bully Inc." by Peter Burnett

   * "The Radium Girls" by Kate Moore

   I have also read a lot of Biblical Pseudepigrapha and some works from the Ethiopian canon.

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2. whilenot-devMay 2024
   Are you looking for something like HWPh[0] (Historical dictionary of philosophy), a 30+ years effort to explain the conceptual history of every philosophical term?

   There's also a smaller series, like Great Mental Models[1], specifically targeting "abstract concepts" in an approachable manner.

   Otherwise, mathematics is still the dominant language for expressing abstract concepts.

   > But there are many words that don't, many symbols that don't, many different words used to describe the same concept, or words that refer to different concepts (depending on context).

   I can recommend In the Land of Invented Languages[2] for a quick and entertaining introduction to the difficulty of constructing a "universal" language. Also Gödel, Escher, Bach[3] discusses the differences of meaning and interpretation (in formal systems), which might be relevant to your interest.

   [0]: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historisches_W%C3%B6rterbuch_d...

   [1]: https://fs.blog/tgmm/

   [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Land_of_Invented_Langua...

   [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del,_Escher,_Bach

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3. johngossmanApr 2024
   Great story. Wilkins and his language also feature in Stephenson’s “System of the World” books. The excellent book “In the land of invented languages” by Arika Okrent dedicates chapter 2 to Wilkins. I should point out, I didn’t go seeking information about Wilkins, but his language just seems to come up randomly for me.

   Okrent’s book also has excellent introductions to Esperanto and Lojban. Lojban is a modern attempt to create a language without ambiguity. That turns out to be hard…speaking takes on some of the characteristics of writing a mathematical proof.

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4. senkoraApr 2024
   +1 to "In the land of invented languages". We read it in a conlang'ing class that I took in college and it was a solid read.
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5. senkoraMar 2024
   I tend to agree with your three specific objections:

   - 5 vowels is actually a very good choice (although the diphthongs in Esperanto are notably odd)

   - pronouncing the R differently is unavoidable and probably fine

   - the x-method works okay in practice (although I subjectively don’t really like it)

   The linked page is “the page” on the problems with Esperanto, and I still think that it has a lot of insight, even if I don’t agree with every point he makes.

   For example, I had no idea how much East Slavic grammar influenced Esperanto, or how important word order was in practice for complex sentences.

   I think it’s reasonable that a much better IAL than Esperanto could be designed today, given all the knowledge of linguistics that we now have, and all of the experienced conlangers. I don’t think that Esperanto is so good that surpassing it would be “one huge nirvana fallacy”.

   But I also don’t expect anyone to ever make an IAL that is more successful than Esperanto, because Esperanto’s success was a product of its time.

   Nowadays, with the status of English, and the availability of machine translation, an IAL is just less important than it once was.

   On a positive note: I recommend the book “In the Land of Invented Languages” by Arika Okrent for a history of conlangs.

   As a shibboleth, here is a sample of my own shitty conlang, whose design I will not attempt to defend:

   anu, ʃamuti usli bisini uma kamlusu slapluŋwu ixla dwamuʒu aku pluŋwuslu bisana aku pwanusu ʒapwunu aku pumuʃwu ixla bluŋusu ʃwutuŋu aku pluŋwuslu aʃa ʒubunlu dimivi… azi ʃumuti ivwu sunwubi xubuŋu bisini uma ʒamigi ivwu vamidi idu bisini bunluʒu xudwunu iza. ʒamigi ivwu vamidi idu bisini uma bisini sudumu fupumu fupumu uta βubunu uta ʃutwumu itu tunuʒu ixla buʒunlu. kiŋliɣi ixla tiniʒi guŋuʒu iba: ʃamiti kiɣiŋi uma mlupuʃu, iʒi igi vabwiŋli ʃubunu uta afu, iʒi xinlipi baʒinli mlupuʃu, azi xunlapa usli bisini mlupuʃu. ʒlumlaga bisini ŋlagusu bisana ibi vwadluŋlu itu xunlapa bisini ŋuguʒu, azi vaŋupa usli, iʒa zwuŋika ivwu suŋibwa bisini ŋladluvwu ixla ŋatuɣwu. udi ʒiŋiti biʒinli busini paŋuɸu xwaguŋu uŋwa ʒabunlu iʒi ʃumuti ivwu sunwubi xwuguŋu bisini uma xanlipi bisini ŋuguʒu. dwinixi iba. iʒi xaŋiti bisini. diŋixwi ixla paŋiɸi xwagiŋi vwiŋigi ivwu sinwibi guŋuʃu bisana, paŋiɸi uŋwa kaŋiɣli pamluzu.

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6. sargstuffJan 2023
   Given this is ycombinator, might be a regular expression swap of nyquil[1] for nyquest[2] to avoid both the music program(s) and scoring $$ on youtume via band videos. Perhaps, and/or avoiding stagecraft[3] stuff too!

   Not enough given to tell if missing point(s)[4].

   Going a bit Esoteric.codes[5] via Lexx [6] or "The conlanger's Lexipedia" by Mark Rosenfelder:

     "The Trope Thesaurus" by Jennifer Hilt
   
     "Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages"by Guy Deutscher
   
      "Imaginary Languages: Myths, Utopias, Fantasies, Illusions, and Linguistic Fictions" Marina Yaguello
   
      "In the Land of Invented Languages: Adventures in Linguistic Creativity, Madness, and Genius" by Arika Okrent
   
      "The Art of Language Invention: From Horse-Lords to Dark Elves to Sand Worms, the Words Behind World-Building" by David Peterson
   
   

   **

   [1] : cold, cough & flu relief

   [2] : Nyquist, A Sound Synthesis and Composition Language (based on Lisp) : https://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/project/music/web/musi...

   [3] : https://www.starwarsnewsnet.com/2022/11/andor-used-stagecraf...

   [4] : 3DILG: RIrregular Latent Grids for 3D generative modeling : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31577343

   [5] hn search on 'esoteric' bit broad, so:

       a) Esoteric.codes : https://esoteric.codes/
   
       b) https://esolangs.org/wiki/Language_list
   
       c) 'A Brief Introduction to Esoteric Programming Languages' : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27206055
   

   [6] LEXX: The DArk Zone Stories: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexx
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