I know there are plenty of esoteric programming languages that are designed to be incredibly difficult to work with, like Malbolge, Brainfuck, and PikaLang, though programs written in them can still be compiled and run by a computer.
There are lots of constructed linguistic languages, like Esperanto and Toki Pona, but for most of those they are designed to be easier to learn or have other functional benefits. Are there any linguistic languages where the goal is to be difficult to speak, write, and understand, while still being actual languages?
Are there any linguistic languages where the goal is to be difficult to speak, write, and understand, while still being actual languages?
Tolkien is known for writing languages for his books, specifically elfish. But instead of drafting a dictionary for elfish he used his knowledge as a linguist to create rules that allowed for ‘reconstruction’/generation of words.
In contrast, Orcish/Black Speech, was specifically left fragmented, using harsh unpleasant sounds, and agglutinative grammar that changes meaning with context instead of adding prefixes/suffixes like English or Elfish.
Tolkien also never wrote songs, poems, or stories in black speech. The inscription on the One Ring afaik is the most complex writing in black speech.
So in a sense, black speech, when juxtaposed with the intuitive design of elfish, kind of fits what you’re asking for; Albeit it’s likely not a functional language.
Klingon. Most of the emphasis is on being difficult to speak, but they also moved the word order around for maximum alien-ness.
It might be stretching the definition of “actual language” since it’s fictional and there’s no formal framework for it, but my first thought was the Marklar language from South Park. It’s the linguistic equivalent of the Whitespace programming language: every noun is Marklar. To the South Park kids it’s completely confusing, while remaining perfectly intelligible to the Marklar.
You gotta be smurfing kidding me
But why can the Marklar speakers understand it? Is it subtle intonation? Or is there a hidden way they convey their nouns?
TL;DR its 2 AM and im thinking too hard about this.
If you took a slice of a sphere, cone, and cylinder, you can get 3 circles, but they are not circles, and the Marklar understand this somehow. What other dimension do they see that we dont? How are they able to convey “circle” in 3 different ways to each other, but not others.
Maybe it’s where in the sentence is it stated: if Marklar is the 3rd word, then it means X. Another possibility is how many times Marklar appears in the sentence. If it’s 4 times, it refers to a specific thing. A combination of these rules could also apply, but I feel that still limits the amount of possible things.
Another variable could be time. If the Marklar have an internal clock advanced from ours, the definition of Marklar could be based on when it is said.
But all that seems unreasonable since ideas arent pre-determined. Im inclined to believe that, through their superior intelligence, they communicate partially on another spectrum, whether that be light, sound, or otherwise, and are unable to communicate that the spectrum even exists to a human.
They cant tell us about their extra ordinary communication in the same way we cant communicate to an animal how light or sound works. Humans can’t fathom the Marklar.
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Navajo code used by the USA during WWII was famously unbreakable, if that counts
Only ‘unbreakble’ because the enemy had no Navajo speaking "decoders’
Oh that would be a very fun project! Make every sound just a different kind of vowel, skip all the consonants entirely. Make sure each word has vowels that are very similar. Every word should be very long as well.
Everything should have conjugations, and you should be able to stack them infinitely. There should be lots of prefixes and suffixes you can sprinkle liberally everywhere.
The grammar should have zero consistency. Everything is just a never ending list of exceptions. You would need to have a degree in cryotherapy to learn this language.
The classification of words and linguistic structures should be so bizarre, that existing systems wouldn’t be able to handle it. None of this fits in any box we already have. It should be so unique, that no other language would help with it.
Are you describing English without saying it?
Which reminds me, the spelling vs. pronunciation would have to be inspired by English. You can’t find anything in the dictionary unless you know the etymological origin of the word. If you don’t know that, your guess of the first letter is guaranteed to be wrong, and you’ll end up opening the book at a completely wrong section. When you hear a new word, it’s easier to just ignore it and get on with your life.
Ha, I had this conversation with my Grade 4 teacher. She would always say “check the dictionary” (when I’d ask how to spell a word I’d only heard) and I would complain that it wasn’t easy to figure out how some words started. Mnemonics, pneumonia, as examples.
I had such a hard time finding /ɪˈpɪt ə mi/. I tried so many different spellings that I ran out of ideas.
However, mnemonics and pneumonia are just diabolical. There’s zero chance that you’ll ever find those… which reminds me, this new language would have to be very big on silent letters. Basically like French, but cranked up to eleven, because anyone foolish enough to study this language deserves to suffer.
As there are vastly more vowel sounds than there are vowel letters, you might as well use only consonant letters to write all the vowels. This language is just one big middle finger to all the other languages out there.
Ithkuil wasn’t made to be hard, but it was made to express "more profound levels of human cognition briefly yet overtly and clearly’, and as a consequence became very hard
Oh wow. That writing looks a lot like something I saw in some game. Maybe daedric?
Khoisan languages might be in this category.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khoisan_languages
Khoisan languages are best known for their use of click consonants as phonemes. These are typically written with characters such as ǃ and ǂ. Clicks are quite versatile as consonants, as they involve two articulations of the tongue which can operate partially independently. Consequently, the languages with the greatest numbers of consonants in the world are Khoisan. The Juǀʼhoan language has 48 click consonants among nearly as many non-click consonants, strident and pharyngealized vowels, and four tones. The ǃXóõ and ǂHõã languages are even more complex.
Well those are actual languages spoken by hundreds of thousands of people (from what I can tell from the Wikipedia article), they certainly aren’t designed to be difficult to learn. Perhaps it’s hard to learn for people who speak English, German, Chinese, Arabic, Portuguese, etc., but the goal wasn’t to construct a language that is hard to understand.
Damn you are right. Oversaw the “designed to be hard” part of your question.
Probably one of the submissions to Agma Schwa’s Cursed Conlang Circus.
Seraphim nearly fits the bill.
