PREFACE

2001 Release Notes: First I'd better explain what I mean by a “constructed language”.  It's obvious, really, as long as you don't imagine I'm talking about anything as mundanely utilitarian as the development of computer “languages” like Intercal, or language‐planning projects like the one that brought Hebrew back from the dead.  Some “conlangs” are indeed contenders for the role of International Auxiliary Language, or Philosophically Perfect Logical Language; but most are just the fictional languages of fictional societies.  J. R. R. Tolkien, patron saint of conlangers, described it as his “Secret Vice”… though that was before he came out of the closet and found a way of turning a tidy profit on the hobby.  I await with interest (Sir) Peter Jackson's big‐screen adaptation of Appendix F.

Once that's been explained, the next question is usually “why?” – and the answer tends to be “as an expression of an obscurely specialised creative urge”, or “as a Gedanken­experiment in linguistic typology”, or perhaps once the thumbscrews come out “because I had more imaginary than real friends to talk to”.  However, I've got an excuse handy: of all the toy languages I've sketched out over the years, this is the only one I've built to order!  Back in 1995 a friend offered to pay me a few quid (or was it pints?) if I'd give him a language suitable for use as background colour in a role‐playing campaign he ran; I didn't get any further details, so I just put a week or so's free time into creating something that felt like an adequate compromise avoiding…

1. Overfamiliarity
   I wanted it to look like a plausible natural language, not a Loglan, but that didn't mean it had to be some thinly disguised version of Latin or Welsh!  The fictional setting wasn't Europe, so my imagined language wasn't mock‐European.
2. Difficulty
   This was a hopeless cause (my client wasn't even a polyglot, let alone a linguist) but I did my best to keep things manageable by making the inflectional system small and regular, avoiding seriously exotic sounds, and cutting corners here and there.
3. Cultural specificity
   Since I didn't have any idea whether the language needed words for “kangaroo” or “flintlock” I tried to reduce it to a lowest common denominator.  I didn't even take the step of naming my brainchild – it just received a tongue‐in‐cheek serial number.  The contrast with the stereotypical in‐depth approach just made it more fun!

I should emphasise that I don't seriously expect people to want to learn the language; it's just here as a curiosity, though I suppose other RPGers might find it a handy source of just‐add‐water glossolalia.  Nor is it “my ideal language” – it just happens to be particularly thoroughly documented, and thus easy to HTMLise.  I may continue to reorganise and expand on the documentation, but it went into a “feature freeze” years ago.

2012 Postscript: what I should have done is given him a simple “con‑trick language” instead!

2020 Postscript: to celebrate its tricentennial (time passes differently in fantasy worlds), I've added a couple of extra sections carefully designed to answer some FAQs without requiring amendments elsewhere.