Contributors wanted f or book on "Invented Languages"

[James A. Landau]

A source you probably have not suspected is the US Army, or more exactly
whoever it is who creates the standardized tests given all new soldiers.  When I
was drafted (August 1969) one of the numerous multiple-choice tests I took
during my first week in the Army was called IIRC "the Army Language Aptitude
Test".

For this test there was an invented language with a vocabulary of, I can't
recall exactly but at most a few dozen words, but with an elaborate grammar of
the inflectional type---I recall it as somebody's rather sadistic combination
of the more annoying features of Russian and Latin grammars.  The
multiple-choice questions were all in this invented language.

Jack Vance wrote a science fiction novel "The Languages of Pao" ABOUT the
deliberate invention of languages.  I don't recall that any samples were given of
the invented languages, but the plot turned on the existence of these new
languages.

Some science fiction writers have had fun, after specifying the languages
used in the worlds they create, creating a few words or even sentences in this
language.  None that I am aware of have gone nearly as far as Tolkien, though.
The examples I am thinking of are Heinlein's "Glory Road" and a short story by
C. M. Kornbluth whose title I cannot remember but which I think was in his
collection "A Mile Beyond the Moon".  Marion Zimmer Bradley in her Darkover
stories has a few short examples of the language spoken on Darkover, but it is not
an invented language but rather a variation of Spanish.

       - Jim Landau