How small can a conlang get ?

2026-03-11 20:57 UTC

Toki pona. End of discussion. Well, maybe, but i’ve been thinking about turning tokens into words and all that fun stuff (disclaimer, i am against any kind of llm and the similar misuses of that technology) and most importantly, about how directions in this high dimensional space seem to encode true semantical dimensions. Like how king + woman - man = king + "vector direction associated with feminity = queen (higly simplified) This brought me to the realization that all languages have a measurable (maybe not exact but at least rough estimate) number of semantic dimensions they have (usually way lower than the number of words in said language). Which then made me wonder : -> How few semantic dimensions do you need for a functionnal conlang ? (i imagine it would be two (binary) but i would be happy to hear your counterpoints) -> how many words per semantic dimensions do you need to get by and is there a reason why human language have so much “redundancy” (why not have “word for magnitude + word for semantic direction” ad nauseam ?) And last but not least, can you make a language with 3 dimensions and speak in rgb colours ? TlDR : how many semantic direction do you needto make a language ?

Replies (4)

@cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2026-03-11 21:03

I thought you meant “as far as users go” and I would say Loxian, it’s only heard from one mouth, Enya’s, and it’s only known to be known by Enya and her songwriter, Roma Ryan, who invented the language. Based on my limited understanding of what you’re saying — which is not your fault, I think you explained it well enough — I think you’re probably right about Toki pona. A lot of people online know how to read/type it, I think it had a surge about 5-15 years ago. I heard about it but never bothered.

Open ##623395
@Tabitha@hexbear.net 2026-03-12 18:57

![wtf-am-i-reading](https://lemmy.ml/api/v3/image_proxy?url=https%3A%2F%2Fhexbear.net%2Fpictrs%2Fimage%2Ff4e935d1-5368-4891-905b-d4c8d065e09d.png "emoji wtf-am-i-reading")

Open ##2729858
@polotype@lemmy.ml 2026-03-12 18:49

Sure thing ! I'll try to seek some links to resources about how chatbot turn words into vectors and about conlangs.

Open ##2729860
@undrwater@lemmy.world 2026-03-12 18:37

Man, this sounds fascinating, but I've got no clue. Can you edit the post with some links for others like me do we can be educated? I could search myself, but I'm currently in a state of "no clue if this research return is what's being talked about".

Open ##2773813