Tragedy of the Internet

Communication systems worldwide are moving digitized data at unprecedented and rapidly increasing speeds, especially with the Internet. But most of that data is cast in linguistic form, and the multiplicity of linguistic cultures renders most of it useless to most of the world's population. 

Systematic, Conscious, Language Construction

Systematic, Conscious, Language Construction

There are those who consider language construction something rare. Yet all languages are under construction by each rising generation.

It's interesting to note that many of the natural languages that we talk about today did not exist as such in the public (or even linguistic) consciousness a hundred or so years ago. In many cases the name did not even exist. Usually more is involved than a new name, per se. Standardization and writing systems play a large role. 

Conscious language construction has been a considerable factor in many cases. Standardization of clusters of dialects, and decisions on alphabets and writing system are often key. Poets have played a big role. But in many cases far more creativity and conscious design has been involved. This is a partial list:

Albanian (standardization of dialects)

Bislama (from unstandardized creoles and  pidgins)

Bosnian (if such does now exist)

Haitian or "Haitian Creole" (from unstandardized creoles)

Hindi (in its official Bharat, i.e., "non-Hindustani" form)

Indonesian (from unstandardized "Malay" creoles and  pidgins)

Norwegian (in its two variant standardizations)

Standard Chinese - from "Peking dialect" but with considerable design applied.

Swahili (as standardized)

Tok Pisin (from unstandardized pidgins and creoles)

Vietnamese (then  referred to as Tonkinese, Annamese, etc.)

Yivrit - Modern Hebrew 

Other written languages have gone through major reforms (which often involve changing vocabulary and standardizing grammatical features as well).

A few examples: 

Azerbaijani  (various alphabet changes, vocabulary influx)

Galician (Galego)

Hausa (written form established, dialect compromises)

Japanese  (limited use of Sinitic characters, vocabulary influx from western languages.)

Kazakh Cyrillic, vocabulary influx from Russian, etc.)

Korean (discontinued most use of Sinitic characters, vocabulary influx from western languages.)

Kyrgyz Cyrillic, vocabulary influx from Russian, etc.)

Lingala  (written form established, dialect compromises)

Mongol ("Outer-Mongolia" - put into Cyrillic, vocabulary influx from Russian, etc.)

Oromo (formerly called "Galla" -- now written)

Papiamentu (spelling standardized)

Russian (spelling reform after the Revolution)

Sardinian (Limba Sarda Unificada)

Somali (standardized, alphabet established)

Tajik Cyrillic, vocabulary influx from Russian, etc.)

Turkish (Ataturk's alphabet change, major vocabulary restructuring)

Turkmen Cyrillic, vocabulary influx from Russian, etc.)

Xhosa (written form established, dialect compromises)

Zhuang

More recently, many dialects that were seldom written have found expression on the Internet. 

In most cases, this involved considerable conscious design, given the diverse features of subdialects.

Asturian

Bolognese

Calabrese

Ferrarese

Furlan

Lombard 

Mudnés

Neapolitan

Parmigiano

Scots

Tetun

Triestino

Valencian

Venetian

Wallon

Zeneize
many, many more 

Then there are all those commercial "constructed languages" like Caterpillar English, etc. 

All this reminds us that "language construction" is not just something rare. 
It is something people constantly do.

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