Ithkuil is a constructed language

Constructed language

A planned or constructed language—known colloquially as a conlang—is a language whose phonology, grammar, and/or vocabulary has been consciously devised by an individual or group, instead of having evolved naturally...

 marked by outstanding grammatical complexity, expressed with a rich phonemic inventory or through an original, graphically structured, system of writing.

The language’s author, John Quijada, presents Ithkuil as a cross between an a priori

A priori (languages)

An a priori language is any constructed language whose vocabulary is not based on existing languages, unlike a posteriori constructed languages. Examples of a priori languages include Ro, Solresol, Mirad, Klingon, and Na'vi...

 philosophical and a logical language designed to express deeper levels of human cognition overtly and clearly, particularly in regard to human categorization, yet briefly. It also strives to minimize the ambiguities and semantic vagueness found in natural human languages.

The many examples from the original grammar book show that a message, like a meaningful phrase or a sentence, can usually be expressed in Ithkuil with fewer sounds, or lexically distinct speech-elements, than in natural human languages. J. Quijada deems his creation too complex and strictly regular a language to have developed “naturally”, but nonetheless a language suited for human conversation. No person is hitherto known to be able to speak Ithkuil fluently; Quijada, for one, does not.

In 2004 — and again in 2009 with its offshoot, Ilaksh — Ithkuil was featured in the Russian-language popular science and IT-technology magazine Computerra

Computerra

Computerra was a Russian computer weekly publication. The first edition was released on December 21, 1992 and was published by C&C Computer Publishing Limited...

.

The second, "definitive (or 'official')" revision of Ithkuil, also named Iţkuîl, was released in July 15, 2011; this is a major revision of the previous version. This article primarily deals with the older version of Ithkuil released in 2004.

Grammar

The lexicon

Lexicon

In linguistics, the lexicon of a language is its vocabulary, including its words and expressions. A lexicon is also a synonym of the word thesaurus. More formally, it is a language's inventory of lexemes. Coined in English 1603, the word "lexicon" derives from the Greek "λεξικόν" , neut...

 of Ithkuil potentially consists of 3,600 word roots

Root (linguistics)

The root word is the primary lexical unit of a word, and of a word family , which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents....

; so far, just 900 are assigned with individual translations. Each root consists of 1-5 consonant

Consonant

In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...

s, and can derive

Derivation (linguistics)

In linguistics, derivation is the process of forming a new word on the basis of an existing word, e.g. happi-ness and un-happy from happy, or determination from determine...

 thousands of lexeme

Lexeme

A lexeme is an abstract unit of morphological analysis in linguistics, that roughly corresponds to a set of forms taken by a single word. For example, in the English language, run, runs, ran and running are forms of the same lexeme, conventionally written as RUN...

s through the use of Ithkuil’s complex rules of morphophonology

Morphophonology

Morphophonology is a branch of linguistics which studies, in general, the interaction between morphological and phonetic processes. When a morpheme is attached to a word, it can alter the phonetic environments of other morphemes in that word. Morphophonemics attempts to describe this process...

, which involve both consonantal

Consonant mutation

Consonant mutation is when a consonant in a word changes according to its morphological and/or syntactic environment.Mutation phenomena occur in languages around the world. A prototypical example of consonant mutation is the initial consonant mutation of all modern Celtic languages...

 and vocal mutation, shifts in syllabic stress and tone, and affixation.

Ithkuil words can be divided into just two parts of speech, formatives and adjuncts. Formatives can function both as nouns and as verbs, depending on the morpho-semantic context. Both nominal and verbal formatives are inflected to one of the possible 3 stems, 3 patterns, 2 designations (formal or informal), 9 configurations, 4 affiliations, 4 perspectives, 6 extensions, 4 contexts, 2 essences, and 96 cases

Grammatical case

In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun is an inflectional form that indicates its grammatical function in a phrase, clause, or sentence. For example, a pronoun may play the role of subject , of direct object , or of possessor...

; formatives also can take on some of the 153 affix

Affix

An affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivational, like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed. They are bound morphemes by definition; prefixes and suffixes may be separable affixes...

es, which are further qualified into one of 9 degrees. Verbal formatives are additionally inflected for 7 illocutions and 7 conflations.

Verbal Adjuncts work in conjunction with adjacent formatives to provide additional grammatical information. Verbal adjuncts are inflected to indicate 14 valencies

Valency (linguistics)

In linguistics, verb valency or valence refers to the number of arguments controlled by a verbal predicate. It is related, though not identical, to verb transitivity, which counts only object arguments of the verbal predicate...

, 6 versions, 8 formats, 37 derivations, 30 modalities

Linguistic modality

In linguistics, modality is what allows speakers to evaluate a proposition relative to a set of other propositions.In standard formal approaches to modality, an utterance expressing modality can always roughly be paraphrased to fit the following template:...

, 4 levels

Comparative

In grammar, the comparative is the form of an adjective or adverb which denotes the degree or grade by which a person, thing, or other entity has a property or quality greater or less in extent than that of another, and is used in this context with a subordinating conjunction, such as than,...

, 9 validations

Evidentiality

In linguistics, evidentiality is, broadly, the indication of the nature of evidence for a given statement; that is, whether evidence exists for the statement and/or what kind of evidence exists. An evidential is the particular grammatical element that indicates evidentiality...

, 9 phases, 9 sanctions, 32 aspects

Grammatical aspect

In linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a verb is a grammatical category that defines the temporal flow in a given action, event, or state, from the point of view of the speaker...

, 8 moods

Grammatical mood

In linguistics, grammatical mood is a grammatical feature of verbs, used to signal modality. That is, it is the use of verbal inflections that allow speakers to express their attitude toward what they are saying...

, and 24 biases.

An example of morphological analysis

(based entirely on the original Ithkuil grammar book)

The word is a formative which was derived in original Ithkuil from the root k-l (broadly concerning “speech”, “voice”, or even “interpretation”) through the addition of several morphological determinants:

• The -u- vocalic infix

  kul was the holistic variety of the Stem 2 of the three other possible stems from k-l. Translating roughly as “a meaningful unit of speech,” i. e. “a word”, it gives no emphasis on the meaning or the vocal rendering of the word.

• The u → uî mutation of the infix

  Secondary, as opposed to Primary, Mode, means that the word kuîl refers not to a real-life phenomenon, but rather to a mental representation, or projection, of that phenomenon; to an imaginary or hypothetical object. Thus “a made-up word”.

• A Grade 8 mutation of the first radical consonant: k → ţk

  The Configuration of the term is Composite. Roughly corresponding to the plural

  Plural

  In linguistics, plurality or [a] plural is a concept of quantity representing a value of more-than-one. Typically applied to nouns, a plural word or marker is used to distinguish a value other than the default quantity of a noun, which is typically one...

  
  ity concept in Indo-European languages

  Indo-European languages

  The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...

  
  , it also implies the objects in question (words, kuîl) to be diverse, while forming a “coherent emergent entity” (rather than just a collection or an array of different words), thus meaning “a vocabulary

  Vocabulary

  A person's vocabulary is the set of words within a language that are familiar to that person. A vocabulary usually develops with age, and serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge...

  
  /lexicon

  Lexicon

  In linguistics, the lexicon of a language is its vocabulary, including its words and expressions. A lexicon is also a synonym of the word thesaurus. More formally, it is a language's inventory of lexemes. Coined in English 1603, the word "lexicon" derives from the Greek "λεξικόν" , neut...

  
  ”.

• The i- vocalic prefix, one of the 24 possible for formative roots

  The Extension is Delimitive, perceiving “the vocabulary” as entire, with clearly distinguished boundaries, as opposed to it being just a local manifestationsuch as slang or a dialectof a broader lexicon (-ţkuîl).

  The Affiliation of the set of objects in question is Coalescent. This indicates that the individual members of the set act together toward a higher purpose by coōrdinating their complementary functions. Thus, “a vocabulary

  Vocabulary

  A person's vocabulary is the set of words within a language that are familiar to that person. A vocabulary usually develops with age, and serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge...

  
  /lexicon

  Lexicon

  In linguistics, the lexicon of a language is its vocabulary, including its words and expressions. A lexicon is also a synonym of the word thesaurus. More formally, it is a language's inventory of lexemes. Coined in English 1603, the word "lexicon" derives from the Greek "λεξικόν" , neut...

  
  ” becomes “a language”.

• Syllabic stress
  Stress (linguistics)
  In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word, or to certain words in a phrase or sentence. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables. The word accent is sometimes also used with this sense.The stress placed...
  
   on the penultimate syllable (-u-)

  The Perspective of the noun is Monadic, seeing “the language” as a single and specific entity, rather than a collection of many languages existing separately, the general phenomenon (“human languages”) or the abstract idea of language.

Thus, the approximate translation of is “an idea/fantasy of a complete purposeful system of complementary speech elements”, or simply “an imaginary language”.

A compound sentence

Romanization:

IPA: [ˈpʊ́l̪l̩̪̀ ʊˈɪ́qɪ̀ʃx ˈmáʔwàɫ̪ɡ ɛʁjaʊ̯fɤˈn̪ɪ́ɛ́n̪ ˈpǽθwɯ̀ç aʊ̯ˈxɤ́ʔjàɬt xn̪ɛʔwiɬˈtáʔʂʊ̀ɪ̯ ˈt̪ʊ́à kɪ̂t̪ œl̪ˈːâ jaˈqázmʊ̀ɪ̯v l̪ɪʔjɯɾˈzɪ́ʂkàʔ pʼamˈm̩̂ aɪl̪ɔʔˈwɤ́tʃːà ʃʊʔˈjɛ́ɸt̪àʂ]
Translation: As our vehicle leaves the ground and plunges over the edge of the cliff toward the valley floor, I ponder whether it is possible that one might allege I am guilty of an act of moral failure, having failed to maintain a proper course along the roadway.

Numeral system

Ithkuil uses a numeral system of base 100 and of superbase 10,000. There are roots for the numbers 1 to 10 (l-s, k-s, š-s, p-s, ţ-s, t-s, n-s, x-s, f-s, and m-s), and the stem-specific derivative affix is used with a root to add a multiple of 10, providing the numerals up to 99. Ithkuil doesn’t use the concept of zero

0 (number)

0 is both a numberand the numerical digit used to represent that number in numerals.It fulfills a central role in mathematics as the additive identity of the integers, real numbers, and many other algebraic structures. As a digit, 0 is used as a placeholder in place value systems...

. Numbers greater than 100 are expressed periphrastically in speech, while Içtaîl has logograms for the numbers 1 to 100 and for even powers of 100.

Phonology

Ithkuil’s phonological

Phonology

Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...

 system of 65 consonant

Consonant

In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...

s and 17 vowels features phonemes borrowed from a variety of natural languages, even like Chechen

Chechen language

The Chechen language is spoken by more than 1.5 million people, mostly in Chechnya and by Chechen people elsewhere. It is a member of the Northeast Caucasian languages.-Classification:...

 and Abkhaz

Abkhaz language

Abkhaz is a Northwest Caucasian language spoken mainly by the Abkhaz people. It is the official language of Abkhazia where around 100,000 people speak it. Furthermore, it is spoken by thousands of members of the Abkhazian diaspora in Turkey, Georgia's autonomous republic of Adjara, Syria, Jordan...

. The consonants of Ithkuil are as follows:

		Labial Labial consonant Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. This precludes linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue reaches for the posterior side of the upper lip and which are considered coronals...	Dental	Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...		Retro- flex Retroflex consonant A retroflex consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants, especially in Indology...	Post- alveolar Postalveolar consonant Postalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, further back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but not as far back as the hard palate...	Palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate...		Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....	Uvular Uvular consonant Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be plosives, fricatives, nasal stops, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not provide a separate symbol for the approximant, and...	Pharyn- geal Pharyngeal consonant A pharyngeal consonant is a type of consonant which is articulated with the root of the tongue against the pharynx.-Pharyngeal consonants in the IPA:Pharyngeal consonants in the International Phonetic Alphabet :...	Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider...
				central Central consonant A central or medial consonant is a consonant sound that is produced when air flows across the center of the mouth over the tongue. The class contrasts with lateral consonants, in which air flows over the sides of the tongue rather than down its center....	lateral Lateral consonant A lateral is an el-like consonant, in which airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue, but is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth....			central Central consonant A central or medial consonant is a consonant sound that is produced when air flows across the center of the mouth over the tongue. The class contrasts with lateral consonants, in which air flows over the sides of the tongue rather than down its center....	lateral Lateral consonant A lateral is an el-like consonant, in which airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue, but is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth....
Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...		m	n̪							ŋ
Plosive	voiced Voice (phonetics) Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer to two separate concepts. Voicing can refer to the articulatory process in which the vocal cords vibrate...	b	d̪					ɟ		ɡ	ɢ
	voiceless Voiceless In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, this is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word "phonation" implies voicing, and that voicelessness is the lack of...	p	t̪					c		k	q		ʔ
	aspirated Aspiration (phonetics) In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. To feel or see the difference between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, one can put a hand or a lit candle in front of one's mouth, and say pin ...	pʰ	t̪ʰ					cʰ		kʰ	qʰ
	ejective Ejective consonant In phonetics, ejective consonants are voiceless consonants that are pronounced with simultaneous closure of the glottis. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated or tenuis consonants...	pʼ	t̪ʼ					cʼ		kʼ	qʼ
Affricate Affricate consonant Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :...	voiced			d͡z		ɖ͡ʐ	d͡ʒ
	voiceless			t͡s		ʈ͡ʂ	t͡ʃ
	aspirated			t͡sʰ		ʈ͡ʂʰ	t͡ʃʰ		cʎ̥˔ʰ
	ejective			t͡sʼ		ʈ͡ʂʼ	t͡ʃʼ	c͡çʼ		k͡xʼ	q͡χʼ
Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or...	voiced	v	ð	z		ʐ	ʒ	ʝ		ɣ
	voiceless	f	θ	s	ɬ	ʂ	ʃ	ç		x	χ	ħ	h
Approximant Approximant consonant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no...			l̪, ɫ̪			ɭ˞		j		w	ʁ̞
Flap Flap consonant In phonetics, a flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, which is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator is thrown against another.-Contrast with stops and trills:...						ɽ

/m n̪ ŋ l ɫ ɭ˞/ can be syllabic. /h/ is pronounced [ɸ] when preceded by a vowel and followed by another consonant. [cʎ̥˔ʰ] is in free variation with [cʎ̥˔ʼ]; the latter is more common at the beginning of a word. All consonants except /j w/ can be geminated; when geminated, /h/ is pronounced as a bidental fricative

Voiceless bidental fricative

The voiceless bidental non-sibilant fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The only natural language known to use it is the Shapsug dialect of Adyghe...

 and /ɽ/ is pronounced as an alveolar trill

Alveolar trill

The alveolar trill is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar trills is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is r. It is commonly called the rolled R, rolling R, or trilled R...

.

The vowels of Ithkuil are as follows:

	front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also...	central Central vowel A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel...	back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark...
Close Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the...	i y	ʉ	ɯ u
Near-close Near-close vowel A near-close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a near-close vowel is that the tongue is positioned similarly to a close vowel, but slightly less constricted. Near-close vowels are sometimes described as lax variants of the fully close vowels...	ɪ		ʊ
Close-mid Close-mid vowel A close-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from a close vowel to a mid vowel...	e ø		ɤ o
Open-mid Open-mid vowel An open-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of an open-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from an open vowel to a mid vowel...	ɛ œ		ɔ
Open Open vowel An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue...	æ	a	ɑ

The diphthongs in Ithkuil are /ai̯ æi̯ ei̯ ɤi̯ øi̯ oi̯ ʊi̯ au̯ æu̯ eu̯ ɤu̯ ɪu̯ ou̯ øu̯ aɯ̯ eɯ̯ ɤɯ̯ ʊɯ̯ oɯ̯ ɪɯ̯ æɯ̯ øɯ̯ ʉɯ̯ ae̯/. All other sequences of vowels are pronounced as separate syllables.

Orthography

Ithkuil's native script is called Içtaîl, the Ithkuil word for 'hypothetical writing system'. It is a morphophonemic script as characters convey both phonetic and morphological information. Its use is closely tied to Ithkuil’s grammatical system, which allows much of the phonological aspect of words to be morpho-syntactically inferred. Those parts of an Ithkuil word whose pronunciation is predictable are not written, while the characters used to indicate the pronunciation of the unpredictable parts of a word also convey the grammatical information necessary to reconstruct the implicit phonetics. Words are thus written in a highly abbreviated manner, particularly useful for the highly inflected, occasionally elongated words of the Ithkuil language. The script is also used alphabetically for transliterating foreign words.

Influences

For his influences, Quijada cites the “morpho-phonology of Abkhaz

Abkhaz language

Abkhaz is a Northwest Caucasian language spoken mainly by the Abkhaz people. It is the official language of Abkhazia where around 100,000 people speak it. Furthermore, it is spoken by thousands of members of the Abkhazian diaspora in Turkey, Georgia's autonomous republic of Adjara, Syria, Jordan...

 verb complexes, the moods of verbs of certain American Indian languages

Indigenous languages of the Americas

Indigenous languages of the Americas are spoken by indigenous peoples from Alaska and Greenland to the southern tip of South America, encompassing the land masses which constitute the Americas. These indigenous languages consist of dozens of distinct language families as well as many language...

, the aspectual system of Niger–Kordofanian languages, the nominal case systems of Basque

Basque language

Basque is the ancestral language of the Basque people, who inhabit the Basque Country, a region spanning an area in northeastern Spain and southwestern France. It is spoken by 25.7% of Basques in all territories...

 and Dagestanian languages

Northeast Caucasian languages

The Northeast Caucasian languages constitute a language family spoken in the Russian republics of Dagestan, Chechnya, Ingushetia, northern Azerbaijan, and in northeastern Georgia, as well as in diaspora populations in Russia, Turkey, and the Middle East...

, the enclitic system of the Wakashan languages

Wakashan languages

Wakashan is a family of languages spoken in British Columbia around and on Vancouver Island, and in the northwestern corner of the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state, on the south side of the Strait of Juan de Fuca....

, the positional orientation systems Tzeltal

Tzeltal language

- External links :*...

 and Guugu Yimidhirr

Guugu Yimithirr language

Guugu Yimithirr is an Australian Aboriginal language, the traditional language of the Guugu Yimithirr people of Far North Queensland. Most of the speakers today live at the community of Hopevale, about 46 km from Cooktown...

, the Semitic triliteral root morphology, and the hearsay and possessive categories of Suzette Elgin's Láadan

Láadan

Láadan is a constructed language created by Suzette Haden Elgin in 1982 to test the Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis, specifically to determine if development of a language aimed at expressing the views of women would shape a culture; a subsidiary hypothesis was that Western natural languages may be better...

 language”.

Possible advantages

The Sapir–Whorf hypothesis

Linguistic relativity

The principle of linguistic relativity holds that the structure of a language affects the ways in which its speakers are able to conceptualize their world, i.e. their world view...

 postulates that a person’s language defines their perceptions and cognitive patterns. Stanislav Kozlovsky proposed, in the Russian popular-scientific magazine Computerra, that a fluent speaker of Ithkuil, accordingly, would think “about five or six times as fast” as a speaker of a typical natural language. One may also argue that, Ithkuil being an extremely precise and synthetic language

Synthetic language

In linguistic typology, a synthetic language is a language with a high morpheme-per-word ratio, as opposed to a low morpheme-per-word ratio in what is described as an isolating language...

, its speaker would, under the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, have a more discerning, deeper understanding both of everyday situations and of broader phenomena, and of abstract philosophical

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

 categories.

Along these lines, Kozlovsky likened Ithkuil to the fictional Speedtalk

Speedtalk

Speedtalk is a fictional constructed language and key plot device in Robert A. Heinlein's novella Gulf . Speedtalk was a logic-based language with complex syntax, minimal vocabulary, and a rich phoneme inventory ; it would make both communication and thought more efficient and precise...

from Robert A. Heinlein

Robert A. Heinlein

Robert Anson Heinlein was an American science fiction writer. Often called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was one of the most influential and controversial authors of the genre. He set a standard for science and engineering plausibility and helped to raise the genre's standards of...

’s novella Gulf

Gulf (Heinlein)

Gulf is a novella by Robert A. Heinlein, originally published as a serial in the November and December 1949 issues of Astounding Science Fiction. It concerns a secret society of geniuses who act to protect humanity...

, and contrasted both languages with the Newspeak

Newspeak

Newspeak is a fictional language in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. In the novel, it refers to the deliberately impoverished language promoted by the state. Orwell included an essay about it in the form of an appendix in which the basic principles of the language are explained...

of the communicationally restricted society of Orwell

George Orwell

Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...

’s Nineteen Eighty-Four

Nineteen Eighty-Four

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is a dystopian novel about Oceania, a society ruled by the oligarchical dictatorship of the Party...

. Ithkuil is by far the most complete language of the three. John Quijada acknowledged the similarity of Ithkuil’ design goals to those of Speedtalk, remarking that, “[h]owever, Heinlein’s Speedtalk appears to focus only on the morpho-phonological component of language[, whereas] Ithkuil has been designed with an equal focus on [morphology, lexico-morphology, or lexico-semantics]. Additionally, the apparent purpose of Heinlein's language is simple rapidity/brevity of speech and thought, while Ithkuil is focused on maximal communication in the most efficient manner, a somewhat different purpose, in which brevity per se is irrelevant.”

Ilaksh: the first revision of Ithkuil

Since the mentioning of Ithkuil in the Russian magazine Computerra, several speakers of Russian contacted Quijada and expressed enthusiasm to learn the language, with several complaining of its difficulty in pronunciation. Quijada remade the language’s morphophonology and published the revision on 10 June 2007, as Ilaksh. The innovation featured other amendments to grammar, like some additional Levels or a slight shuffling of noun cases.

The Ilaksh script was redesigned. It has two forms, a sequential “informal” system suitable for handwriting or compact typesetting, and a “formal” logographic system with artistic possibilities resembling Maya script

Maya script

The Maya script, also known as Maya glyphs or Maya hieroglyphs, is the writing system of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization of Mesoamerica, presently the only Mesoamerican writing system that has been substantially deciphered...

s.

In the “informal” writing system, several parallel sets of lines are shaped to correspond sequentially to the different parallel sets of lexemes and inflections. It is directly pronounceable. The author designed it with reserve for convenient handwriting. The overall design would permit compact, clear, black-and-white rendering.

In the colorful “formal” script, a single complex glyph represents an entire sentence. Diversely shaped, shaded and superimposed “cartouches” represent the syntactic

Syntax

In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....

 relations of the verb and noun phrases of a sentence. The edges of the cartouches have particular shapes describing one set of inflections, while the colors describe another set of inflexions, and the textures yet another set. On the cartouches, “letters” of hexagonal outline spell out the shapes of particular lexemes. The cartouches form phrases, with primary phrases overlapping subordinate phrases. The coloring system utilizes different color densities and texturing for different colors in order to be usable by color-blind people. These density conventions also allow the formal system to be inexpensively printed in black-and-white, or inscribed or imprinted on stone or other materials.

As of July 2011, Quijada plans to adopt the formal script "for use as an alternative, 'ornamental' writing system for artistic purposes" to the 2011 revision of Ithkuil, which was made to be morphologically similar to Ilaksh.

External links

• Ithkuil official site, now presenting the version as of July 2011