International Auxiliary Language - Classification

Classification

The following classification of auxiliary languages was developed by Pierre Janton in 1993:

• A priori languages are characterized by largely artificial morphemes (not borrowed from natural languages), schematic derivation, simple phonology, grammar and morphology. Some a priori languages are called philosophical languages, referring to their basis in philosophical ideas about thought and language. These include some of the earliest efforts at auxiliary language in the 17th century. A modern example of a fully developed a priori language is Kotava (1978). Some more specific subcategories:
  • Oligosynthetic or oligoisolating languages have no more than a few hundred morphemes. Most of their vocabulary is made of compound words or set phrases formed from these morphemes. Sona and Toki Pona are well known examples, although Toki Pona is not primarily a priori.
  • Taxonomic languages form their words using a taxonomic hierarchy, with each phoneme of a word helping specify its position in a semantic hierarchy of some kind; for example, Ro and Arahau.
  • Pasigraphies are purely written languages without a spoken form, or with a spoken form left at the discretion of the reader; many of the 17th-18th century philosophical languages and auxlangs were pasigraphies. This set historically tends to overlap with taxonomic languages, though there's no inherent reason a pasigraphy needs to be taxonomic.
  • Logical languages, for example, Loglan and Lojban, aim to eliminate ambiguity. Both these examples, it should be noted, derive their morphemes from a broad range of natural languages using statistical methods.
• A posteriori languages are based on existing natural languages. Nearly all the auxiliary languages with fluent speakers are in this category. Most of the a posteriori auxiliary languages borrow their vocabulary primarily or solely from European languages, and base their grammar more or less on European models. (Aficionados sometimes refer to these European-based languages as "euroclones", although this term has negative connotations and is not used in the academic literature.) Interlingua was drawn originally from international scientific vocabulary, in turn based primarily on Greek and Latin roots. Glosa did likewise, with a stronger dependence of Greek roots. is derived from Glosa. It is improved with high clarity and same isolating, developed en 2010. Although a posteriori languages have been based on most of the families of European languages, the most successful of these (notably Esperanto, Ido and Interlingua) have been based largely on Romance and/or Latin elements.
  • Schematic (or "mixed") languages have some a priori qualities. Some have ethnic morphemes but alter them significantly to fit a simplified phonotactic pattern(e.g., Volapük, Toki Pona) or both artificial and natural morphemes (e.g., Perio). Partly schematic languages have partly schematic and partly naturalistic derivation (e.g. Esperanto and Ido). Natural morphemes of languages in this group are rarely altered greatly from their source-language form, but compound and derived words are generally not recognizable at sight by people familiar with the source languages.
  • Naturalistic languages resemble existing natural languages. For example, Occidental, Interlingua, and Lingua Franca Nova were developed so that not only the root words but their compounds and derivations will often be recognizable immediately by large numbers of people. Some naturalistic languages do have a limited number of artificial morphemes or invented grammatical devices (e.g. Novial). (Note that the term "naturalistic" as used in auxiliary language scholarship does not mean the same thing as the homophonous term used in describing artistic languages.)
  • Simplified natural languages reduce the full extent of vocabulary and partially regularize the grammar of a natural language (e.g. Basic English, Special English and Globish).