An artistic language (artlang) is a constructed language designed for aesthetic pleasure. Unlike engineered languages or auxiliary languages, artistic languages usually have irregular grammar systems, much like natural languages. Many are designed within the context of fictional worlds, such as J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth. Others represent fictional minority languages in a world not patently different from the real world, or have no particular fictional background attached.
There are several different schools of artistic language construction. The most prominent is the naturalist school, which seeks to imitate the complexity and historicity of natural languages. Others do not attempt to imitate the natural evolution of languages, but follow a more abstract style.
Read more about Artistic Language: Genres, Examples of Artistic Languages
Famous quotes containing the words artistic and/or language:
“[The pleasures of writing] correspond exactly to the pleasures of reading, the bliss, the felicity of a phrase is shared by writer and reader: by the satisfied writer and the grateful reader, or—which is the same thing—by the artist grateful to the unknown force in his mind that has suggested a combination of images and by the artistic reader whom his combination satisfies.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“He had not failed to observe how harmoniously gigantic language and a microscopic topic go together.”
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