glossopoeia

/ˌɡlɒsəʊˈpɪə/

Etymology

From glosso- (“language”) + -poeia (“making”); coined by J. R. R. Tolkien.

Why this word is great

GLOSSOPOEIA — [Noun] The artistic creation of constructed languages, or a language so conceived. From Greek glōssa ("tongue, language") + -poeia ("making, creation"), coined by J. R. R. Tolkien to describe his own mythopoeic linguistics. Unlike "conlang" (a clinical descriptor for any invented tongue) or "auxlang" (a functional bridge like Volapük), glossopoeia is philology as alchemy, transmuting grammar into aesthetic revelation. It is the liquid trill of Quenya poetry, the jagged syllabary of Klingon battle chants, or the recursive logic of Atlantean glyphs—each not merely spoken, but inhabited, a cathedral of syntax where every phoneme is a stained-glass window.

noun

  1. The creation of constructed languages for artistic purposes; language so created.“Glossopoeia, which is neither an imitative language nor a creation of names, takes us back to the borderline of the moment when the word has not yet been born, when articulation is no longer a shout but not yet discourse, when repetition is almost impossible, and along with it, language in general: the separation of concept and sound, of signified and signifier, of the pneumatical and the grammati”