Philosophical language

Aphilosophical languageis anyconstructed languagethat is constructed fromfirst principles,sometimes following a classification. It is considered a type ofengineered language.Philosophical languages were popular inEarly Moderntimes, partly motivated by the goal of revising normal language for philosophical (i.e. scientific) purposes. The termideal languageis sometimes used near-synonymously, though more modern philosophical languages such asToki Ponaare 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 ofmorphemesthat are treated as "elemental" or "fundamental". "Philosophical language" is sometimes used synonymously with "taxonomic language". Vocabularies ofoligosynthetic languagesare made ofcompound words,which are coined from a small (theoretically minimal) set ofmorphemes.Languages like Toki Pona similarly use a limited set of root words but produce phrases which remain series of distinct words.

History

Foreseen inDescartes' letter toMersenneof November 20, 1629, work on philosophical languages was pioneered byFrancis Lodwick(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), SirThomas Urquhart(Logopandecteision,1652),George Dalgarno(Ars signorum,1661), andJohn Wilkins(An Essay towards a Real Character, and a Philosophical Language,1668). Those were systems ofhierarchical classificationthat were intended to result in both spoken and written expression. In 1855, English writerGeorge Edmondsmodified 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.

Gottfried Leibnizcreatedlingua generalis(orlingua 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 developedbinary calculus.

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 theEncyclopédie,in theAge of Enlightenment.Under the entryCharactère,D'Alembertcritically reviewed the projects of philosophical languages of the preceding century.

After theEncyclopédie,projects fora priorilanguages 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 (Toki Pona).

See also

• Characteristica universalis
• Engineered language
• Ideal language philosophy
• Linguistic philosophy
• Natural semantic metalanguage

Bibliography

• Umberto Eco,The Search for the Perfect Language,1993.
• Alan Libert,A Priori Artificial Languages.Munich, Lincom Europa, 2000.ISBN3-89586-667-9