<p>My answer is a little biased, but I can speak for the history of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solresol" rel="noreferrer">Solresol</a>. Solresol was invented in the early 1800s, grew in popularity over the next ~70 years, even after the death of its creator, and then (apparently) abruptly died out in the early 1900s, despite supposedly being at the peak of its popularity. There were only a few brief mentions of Solresol throughout the 1900s in books about universal language attempts. Then, in the 1990s, someone started a mailing list discussion about Solresol through reading one of those books, and the community has been slowly growing ever since, with a desire to further develop and promote the language.</p>

<p><a href="https://conlang.stackexchange.com/a/235/139">Gufferdk makes a good point that it's difficult to prove the "death" of a conlang.</a> There is no known documentation of Solresol being in use through most of the 1900s, but I cannot prove that more private communication did not exist.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-09T11:28:24.267Z
2018-02-09T11:28:24.267Z
Dan Parson
<p>Since conlangs by their very nature don't start out with any speakers, and in most cases the author is not immediately a skilled user of the language, conlangs tend start out dead, and so under this definition almost any conlang with a speaker community would technically once have been dead.</p>

<p>However, going by "dying" as having a community, then losing it, reliable data is somewhat hard to find, as a small remainder of a community (which could be as little as two individuals' private postal correspondence) can be very hard to locate especially in pre-internet days, though it seems that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiom_Neutral" rel="noreferrer"><em>Idiom Neutral</em></a>, published in 1902, once had largely fallen out of use, but has recieved a recent revival by enthusiasts in a couple of internet usergroups and blogs.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-09T08:32:13.120Z
2018-02-09T08:32:13.120Z
Gufferdk
<p>That means, are there any such conlangs that exist today but were once declared as dead or not in use by any community?</p>

<history>
Is there an existing constructed language that once was dead?
# Is there an existing constructed language that once was dead?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2018-02-09)

That means, are there any such conlangs that exist today but were once declared as dead or not in use by any community?

**Tags:** history

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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2018-02-09. Score: 11

My answer is a little biased, but I can speak for the history of [Solresol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solresol). Solresol was invented in the early 1800s, grew in popularity over the next ~70 years, even after the death of its creator, and then (apparently) abruptly died out in the early 1900s, despite supposedly being at the peak of its popularity. There were only a few brief mentions of Solresol throughout the 1900s in books about universal language attempts. Then, in the 1990s, someone started a mailing list discussion about Solresol through reading one of those books, and the community has been slowly growing ever since, with a desire to further develop and promote the language.

[Gufferdk makes a good point that it's difficult to prove the "death" of a conlang.](https://conlang.stackexchange.com/a/235/139) There is no known documentation of Solresol being in use through most of the 1900s, but I cannot prove that more private communication did not exist.


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### Answer by username_2 on 2018-02-09. Score: 11

Since conlangs by their very nature don't start out with any speakers, and in most cases the author is not immediately a skilled user of the language, conlangs tend start out dead, and so under this definition almost any conlang with a speaker community would technically once have been dead.

However, going by "dying" as having a community, then losing it, reliable data is somewhat hard to find, as a small remainder of a community (which could be as little as two individuals' private postal correspondence) can be very hard to locate especially in pre-internet days, though it seems that [*Idiom Neutral*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiom_Neutral), published in 1902, once had largely fallen out of use, but has recieved a recent revival by enthusiasts in a couple of internet usergroups and blogs.


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