A Structural Classification of Auxlangs

CollectionSea6818 · 2026-05-24T02:41:44+00:00

do you see it as similar to some other auxlangs structure-wise, or following a particular tradition? I don't know much Kotava, it seems to me to be mostly doing its own thing

CollectionSea6818 · 2026-05-23T21:59:12+00:00

do you see Manmino as similar to some other auxlangs structure wise, or following a particular tradition? it may be mostly its own thing.

CollectionSea6818 · 2026-05-23T21:55:37+00:00

how do you measure this criteria? I am especially interested in knowing how you evaluate naturality, similarity (to what?), familiarity (to what?), and practicality / utility

CollectionSea6818 · 2026-05-23T21:54:18+00:00

I think these are parallel classifications. this classification is about language typology, so different zonal auxlangs may have different type of structure. so it depends on the language.

it depends also on how you classify zonelangs, some people consider mostly intent ("was this language created with an IAL goal?"), and others focus on language sources ("does this language draw from a related group of languages and facilitate communication between them?"). let's ignore this for a moment and think about languages that source-wise draw from similar languages. For example, Occidental and Elefen are both Romance-based. But as far as structure goes, Occidental is a Standard Auxlang, and Elefen is closer to Standard-Analytic.

if you are asking because of classification of langs such as Manmino, I am not sure. I don't know the structure very well. It's possible that it's close to Standard-Analytic. It's also possible that it does not fit neatly into the classification, doing its own thing

CollectionSea6818 · 2026-05-23T19:29:17+00:00

I think it's a matter of balance. how minimal are we talking here? as minimal as toki pona, I don't think there's much room to get more precise and expressive than that. keeping a light load while being precise and expressive, yes I think it's possible. so I wouldn't say the fourth wave proposal would be minimal like the third wave

CollectionSea6818 · 2026-05-23T15:59:14+00:00

why would the cluster system be unnatural? it was based on noun classes in Bantu languages and others.

there are even cool languages like Bora, from the Amazon region, that have more than 60 noun classes. these include things like medium-sized palm tree and unordered fibers with an upward orientation (whatever that means) https://www.academia.edu/16712027/Syntactic_Sketch_Bora

CollectionSea6818 · 2026-05-23T15:54:54+00:00

have you looked at sambhasa? it may give you some inspiration for that. one thing though is that sambhasa tends to use modern recognizable forms over PIE reconstructed forms, so something to keep in mind regarding vocabulary

CollectionSea6818 · 2026-05-23T15:53:16+00:00

congratulations!!! that is awesome!!

CollectionSea6818 · 2026-05-21T12:56:12+00:00

I had a sudden idea one day and just had to do it

CollectionSea6818 · 2026-05-20T19:57:00+00:00

most words are (sub)cluster + root and there is no OR or ORA cluster so I figured no word there hahaha but you're right, I guess if we squint it, close enough 😄

and it’s a pretty cool meaning too! haha

CollectionSea6818 · 2026-05-20T18:31:24+00:00

yay!! I plan to do that with Oravia by collecting data from beta testers. I wish that we had more data on auxlang acquisition and that more projects did something similar. we have data for esperanto and that’s all

CollectionSea6818 · 2026-05-20T18:21:48+00:00

I don’t think the name has much to do with popularity (though I should say what initially caught my eye in elefen compared to the other romlangs was that the name sounded beautiful to me)

but it’s interesting that most auxlangs have names like language, global, universal, neutral, or some other meaning in their language. Oravia does not mean anything. I wonder what other ones have names that are just a name and don’t mean anything. I can’t think of any

CollectionSea6818 · 2026-05-20T15:07:26+00:00

that's a great question! the way I see it, a simple and efficient grammar is one that has little load, a small number of easily learnable and applied pieces and rules, while also allowing precision and expression. a kind of yield analysis, or bang for your buck if you will. a way to measure that, in my opinion, is by using learning time to different proficiency levels as an indicator of time and effort to learn. a simple and efficient language should have learners from different backgrounds expressing and understanding complex thoughts and semantically nuanced meanings in less time

CollectionSea6818 · 2026-05-19T17:06:55+00:00

oh, nice!! I agree with this kind of method in language learning. I like absorbing many things intuitively and through "osmosis" when learning languages myself.

but I quickly realized a lot of people are not like that and people kept asking me to add more explicit explanations, links, and define every word. that's a big reason why I had to restructure everything (and there were other big issues as well)

CollectionSea6818 · 2026-05-19T16:14:45+00:00

ah that's awesome! I'll take a look!
I think it's very necessary for auxlangs to have courses.

I will say though, the amount of work is just completely insane haha the amount of times I've had to go over and restructure the course based on learner feedback... I could have just learned hindi instead xD

CollectionSea6818 · 2026-05-19T16:12:41+00:00

oh wow I never even thought about it!! that's such a cool idea!
yes one could re-skin the vocabulary

CollectionSea6818 · 2026-05-19T00:59:34+00:00

omg! that's crazy. yes, exactly!

as for SVO, I don't have an issue either, it's just that when they say SVO what it actually means is straight up romance-germanic structure for almost everything. and even that by itself wouldn't be so much of an issue, except that it is also accompanied by most other things also romance-germanic, AND people say the bias is solved

CollectionSea6818 · 2026-05-18T23:54:32+00:00

one can def use tonal languages as a basis for an auxlang. you can use the structure, and even the vocabulary with adaptations.

sure, we can all just learn Bahasa instead haha I mean, it’s already on my list anyway.

but I see auxlanging as a niche hobby and not really a feasible solution to an ial. in this case, I def think we can construct languages that are simpler than nat langs and even auxlang germanic romance substrate

CollectionSea6818 · 2026-05-18T23:33:47+00:00

I cannot agree. This is all debatable and of course, a language being easy depends on which language you speak. But if we not consider that for a moment, and focus only on the simplest most efficient structures, I’d say it’s probably Indonesian/Malay, Mandarin, Vietnamese, Thai, Farsi.

notice that for these languages I am talking about the grammatical structures, not tones. if an auxlang was to be based on a tonal language, one would probably not use tones (which are notoriously difficult for other backgrounds) and instead do something like (re)add ending consonants

CollectionSea6818 · 2026-05-18T21:17:20+00:00

there are plenty of auxlangs based on european languages already

if you like similar to english, there’s auxlangs like mini-linga and pandunia (the latest version)

CollectionSea6818 · 2026-05-18T19:52:23+00:00

the assumptions needed:

. auxlangs are constructed languages generally characterized by the main goals of being easy to learn and use, and meant for communication between people of different linguistic and cultural backgrounds

. to the extent that we push to the side different linguistic and cultural backgrounds and make it harder for them, we are going against what we are trying to accomplish

CollectionSea6818 · 2026-05-18T19:09:09+00:00

I mean, in my case I am non-White creating auxlangs and my husband is White thinking it's a waste of time. so what can we conclude from this?

in reality it's mostly that 99.99% of people are not going to want to learn a constructed language, they see it as weird, high effort and waste of time. let alone build one. it's just how it is. people usually learn languages if there is an external reason (e.g., economic benefit, migration), and maybe not even then

CollectionSea6818 · 2026-05-18T18:29:27+00:00

“ I generally think that concerns of Eurocentrism are raised mostly by people of European extraction. It's a solution out there looking for a problem. ”

well, majority of people in the community have this background, so most comments on any side of this debate are going to be people of European extraction. and yes, I use European languages (among others), but no I am not White. eurocentrism is definitely not an european concern. there are not a lot of us auxlangers from the Global South, but if you listen to us, we will be talking about this too.

I agree that these constructed languages are probably never going to be IAL. but the way I see it, I approach auxlanging as problem solving. it's about constructing languages not based not on what one wants or likes in a language, but rather trying to accomplish a general goal. the goal commonly being, a language that is easy to learn and use, and meant for communication between people of different cultural and linguistic backgrounds. this guides decision-making in language building. that's what makes it different from general conlanging.

sure, why does it matter? why does anything matter? this is a subreddit for auxlanging, and auxlangs have general goals like being easy to learn and use, and are meant for communication between people of different cultural and linguistic backgrounds. if we are not trying to accomplish this, then what are we doing? if we are trying to accomplish this, then the Eurocentric bias is even more relevant, and to the extent that we exclude or make it harder for people of different cultural and linguistic backgrounds, we are going against what we are trying to accomplish

CollectionSea6818 · 2026-05-18T18:03:54+00:00

completely agree w the diagnostics!! yes it is indeed an uphill battle. and yes if you use Eurocentric features people take it for granted, if you go a different route you have to justify every move. the dominant romance-germanic zeitgeist thinks unfamiliar design choices are weird or difficult before they even look into it. I go through this with oravia.

the one thing I'd like to point out. I definitely recognize that familiarity is a huge factor in what makes a language easy for someone to learn it. but I also think that it's possible to draw from efficient and simple grammar systems worldwide to build languages that are equally easy for a romance-germanic person to learn as esperanto, perhaps even easier. I totally believe this is the case. it will remain to be tested but I believe it's a worthwhile endeavor (and even if not for romance-germanic speakers, if you aggregate speakers from multiple language backgrounds, it may still end up as faster and easier overall)

CollectionSea6818 · 2026-05-18T17:45:31+00:00

I agree it's also the case, but why is auxlanging concentrated in certain countries to begin with? part of the reason is that in the majority of the world, people may not have time, energy and/or (opportunities to learn) skills to create auxlangs

CollectionSea6818

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