“Conlinguistics”
Seren Arbazard
Written in Japanese on 11/24/2015. Translated into English on 11/25/2015.

Preface

A conlang is a language which is created by particular person or group intentionally.
According to the documents, the oldest conlang is Lingua Ignota by Hildegard of Binden in the 12th century. The fact means conlanging has at least around 900-year history. Many conlangers studied conlanging in 17-18C earnestly in France and England. I’ll refer to it in General history of conlang.
Later, Esperanto every conlanger knows of was born in 1887. Esperanto was so famous that many auxiliary languages were created referring to it. 20C was also auxiliary languages’ time like 19C.
In the end of 20C, Windows was launched. By the beginning of 21C, almost young people in developed countries got a PC and the Internet.
Conlangs were created with paper and a pen by 20C. I call it “man-powered analog era”.
In 21C, thanks to PCs and the Internet, it became easier to create conlangs and make them public. So many conlangs were born. I call it “man-powered digital era”. We live in the man-powered digital era now. This era goes on for the time being.
People will begin to make conlangs under simulation by computers, someday. Conlangers in the era only manipulate their PC. They’ll make AI creates conlangs. I call it “AI-powered era”. However human beings have wonderful creativity. So they’ll continue to create conlangs without AI in the future.

This text aims to tell the knowledge on conlanging of the man-powered era to conlangers in the future.
In every study, people passes the baton to their successors to develop their fields. Conlangers do, too. Only with AI, people in the future will be able to do nothing without the knowledge of conlanging. They might suffer from tragedies in which their conlangs are the same to the conlangs that were created more than 400 years ago. I’ll record the knowledge on conlanging in man-powered era so that conlangers in the future will be able to create conlangs rationally.

This text also aims to establish conlinguistics as a kind of linguistics.
According to the history, treatises on a universal language was purged by La Société de Linguistique de Paris in 1866. Today, almost all linguists still won’t consider conlinguistics as a kind of linguistics.
Logically speaking, conlinguistics is a kind of linguistics because conlang is a kind of language.
Then, why isn’t conlinguistics considered as a kind of linguistics? That’s because there’re few linguistics who are also a conlanger and there’re few conlangers who major in linguistics. For linguists, conlanging is just play by amateurs. But since conlang is a kind of languages, logically speaking conlinguistics is a kind of linguistics.

There’re many conlangers in the world. But many conlangers stop creating conlangs in 5 years and leave the world of conlanging or become an inactive member. People busily come in and out of the world.
Many conlangers care about only their own conlangs, don’t consider conlanging. So even with around 900-year history, conlinguistics wasn’t born.

When was conlinguistics born?
I’m Seren Arbazard. I’m French-Korean Japanese born on 2/4/1981. I started creating a conlang in 1991. Its name is Arka. I created Arka and used it with my friends. I began to think about conlanging like “how to make a conlang” when I was creating Arka.
We thought about conlanging, reflected the result in creating Arka.
My theories on conlinguistics stem from the experience when we were creating Arka, so conlinguistics was born in 1991.
In fall of 1991, I got a new PC and the Internet. I was looking for the information on many conlangs in the world with the Internet. But there were not many conlangs on the Internet those days. There was no site which taught me about conlinguistics like “how to make a conlang”. Of course, there was no book on conlanging.

In 2005, I made a website named “The New Conlang Theory”. There, I introduced Arka and Conlinguistics (how to make a conlang and so on). In Japan, it was the first site which tells how to make a conlang.
In 2011, I revised my site to commemorate my 20-year study on conlanging, renamed it “Conlinguistics” and named my 20-year study on conlanging conlinguistics. I was using the word conlinguistics in 1990s, though with my Arka friends.

What does conlinguistics study? According to conlinguists’ work, it seems most conlinguists tend to explain how to make a conlang first. How-to-make-a-conlang is just a field under Making Conlinguistics of Synchronic Conlinguistics. It’s no more than a little field of conlinguistics.

I believe almost all conlangers understand that conlangers consider “whether my conlang has the phoneme /s/?” before considering “how should I call an almond chocolate in my conlang?” or “whether my conlang has a word for an almond chocolate?” But why?
Conlangers decide a word form for “lip” before considering “in my conlang, to which area does ‘lip’ includes?” Why?
That’s because creating conlangs has orders: elements such as Climate and Word Usage are usually considered after considering elements such as Sound and Vocabulary.

At first sight, conlangs are free creation. However, analyzing many conlangs, you will find conlangers create conlangs under some tendency and laws. So conlangs are also created under some tendency and laws.
Then what are the tendency and laws? Conlinguistics studies about such tendency and laws.
The question above is just an example under Making Conlinguistics of Synchronic Conlinguistics. Conlinguistics has a large field.

I’d like to study more about conlinguistics through writing the text.  I’d like to tell the knowledge and experience to conlangers in the future.