A philosophical language is any

constructed language A constructed language (sometimes called a conlang) is a language whose phonology, grammar, and vocabulary, instead of having developed naturally, are consciously devised for some purpose, which may include being devised for a work of fiction. ...

that is constructed from first principles. It is considered a type of

engineered language Engineered languages (often abbreviated to engelangs, or, less commonly, engilangs) are constructed languages devised to test or prove some hypotheses about how languages work or might work. There are at least three subcategories, philosophical ...

. Philosophical languages were popular in Early Modern times, partly motivated by the goal of revising normal language for philosophical (i.e. scientific) purposes. The term ideal language is sometimes used near-synonymously, though more modern philosophical languages such as

Toki Pona Toki Pona (rendered as ''toki pona'' and often translated as 'the language of good'; ; ) is a philosophical artistic constructed language (philosophical artlang) known for its small vocabulary, simplicity, and ease of acquisition. It was create ...

are less likely to involve such an exalted claim of perfection. The axioms and grammars of the languages together differ from commonly spoken languages.

Overview

In most philosophical languages, words are constructed from a limited set of morphemes that are treated as "elemental" or fundamental. "Philosophical language" is sometimes used synonymously with "taxonomic language". Vocabularies of oligosynthetic languages are made of compound words, which are coined from a small (theoretically minimal) set of

morpheme A morpheme is the smallest meaningful Constituent (linguistics), constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistics, linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology (linguistics), morphology. In English, morphemes are ...

s. Languages like Toki Pona similarly use a limited set of root words but produce phrases which remain series of distinct words.

History

Work on philosophical languages was pioneered by

Francis Lodwick Francis Lodwick Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (or Lodowick; 1619–1694) was a pioneer of a priori language, ''a priori'' languages (what in the seventeenth century was called a 'philosophical language'). Biography Francis Lodwick was a mer ...

(''A Common Writing'', 1647; ''The Groundwork or Foundation laid (or So Intended) for the Framing of a New Perfect Language and a Universal Common Writing'', 1652), Sir Thomas Urquhart ('' Logopandecteision'', 1652), George Dalgarno (''Ars signorum'', 1661), and

John Wilkins John Wilkins, (14 February 1614 – 19 November 1672) was an Anglican clergyman, natural philosopher, and author, and was one of the founders of the Royal Society. He was Bishop of Chester from 1668 until his death. Wilkins is one of the ...

('' An Essay towards a Real Character, and a Philosophical Language'', 1668). Those were systems of hierarchical classification that were intended to result in both spoken and written expression. In 1855, English writer George Edmonds modified Wilkins' system, leaving its taxonomy intact, but changing the grammar, orthography and pronunciation of the language in an effort to make it easier to speak and to read.Edmonds, George. ''A Universal Alphabet, Grammar, and Language''.

Richard Griffin and Company Richard Griffin & Co. was a bookselling, publishing and scientific equipment company owned by Charles Griffin, based in Glasgow, Scotland. In the 19th century it acted as publisher to the University of Glasgow. It was one of the earliest of the ...

, London and Glasgow, 1855. Gottfried Leibniz created '' lingua generalis'' (or ''lingua universalis'') in 1678, aiming to create a lexicon of characters upon which the user might perform calculations that would yield true propositions automatically; as a side effect he developed binary calculus.history-computer.com
/ref> These projects aimed not only to reduce or model grammar, but also to arrange all human knowledge into "characters" or hierarchies. This idea ultimately led to the '' Encyclopédie'', in the

Age of Enlightenment The Age of Enlightenment or the Enlightenment; german: Aufklärung, "Enlightenment"; it, L'Illuminismo, "Enlightenment"; pl, Oświecenie, "Enlightenment"; pt, Iluminismo, "Enlightenment"; es, La Ilustración, "Enlightenment" was an intel ...

. Under the entry ''Charactère'', D'Alembert critically reviewed the projects of philosophical languages of the preceding century. After the ''Encyclopédie'', projects for ''a priori'' languages moved more and more to the fringe. However, from time to time, some authors continued to propose philosophical languages until the 20th century (for example, Ro, aUI) or even in the 21st century (

References

Bibliography

* Umberto Eco, ''

The Search for the Perfect Language ''La ricerca della lingua perfetta nella cultura europea'' (''The Search for the Perfect Language (the Making of Europe)''; trans. James Fentress) is a 1993 book by Umberto Eco about attempts to devise an ideal language. The writing is essayisti ...

'', 1993. * Alan Libert, ''A Priori Artificial Languages''. Munich, Lincom Europa, 2000. {{DEFAULTSORT:Philosophical Language Constructed languages Interlinguistics Language and mysticism

Overview

History

See also

References

Bibliography