constructed language

Noun

constructed language (plural constructed languages)

1. Any language—whether a human language, a programming language, or markup language—that is not a natural language.
   • So if the constructed language is machine code, that is very fine, because the syntax (the grammar) is very simple and the meaning of each instruction can be verified [...]1972, Maurice Marois, Man and Computer: Proceedings, S. Karger, page 120
   • Considering the versatility of natural language, it is indeed astonishing that constructed languages like algebra and programming languages were introduced and became successful.1974, Enid Mumford, Harold Sackman, International Federation for Information Processing, Human Choice and Computers: Proceedings of the IFIP Conference on Human Choice and Computers, Vienna, April...
2. A human language that has been consciously devised by an individual or a group, as opposed to having naturally evolved as part of a culture like a natural language.
   • The first practical constructed language was the south-west German Pastor Schleyer's Volapük from 1879; its complicated grammar and irregular vocabulary made learning difficult, however. The most successful has been Esperanto, devised by the Warsaw ophthalmologist Ludwig Zamenhof in 1887, that...2004, Steven Roger Fischer, A History of Language
   • [...] Unas Language from the science fiction television series Stargate SG-1 is a simplistic constructed language that lends itself to quick, sharp sentences.2008, Inc Icon Group International, Repeat: Webster's Quotations, Facts and Phrases, ICON Group International, →ISBN, page 587

   Synonyms:

   artificial language, conlang, conlanguage, planned language

3. (archaic) Any language used by people, as opposed to less civilized means of communication, such as the socialization between animals.
   • It has been said that— when I made the observation, that if they were not married they ought to be—I endeavoured to stab their reputation. Now, I'll prove that I endeavoured to do nothing of the sort. [...] I'll prove it by logic, and I defy all the mathematicians in the habitable globe to known it...1844, Henry Cockton, Sylvester Sound, the somnambulist, pages 203–204
   • Who does not understand, as single parts of speech, all the common combinations which serve to connect and carry on construction, such as in-consequence-of, on-this-account, [...], and the like? Indeed, we are entitled to say of ordinary common-place speakers, that as they scarcely use constructed...1855, Benjamin Humphrey Smart, Thought and Language..., Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, page 165