In the 1980s (yeah, I was alive then) I invented my own constructed language ("conlang"), complete with grammar, syntax, and vocabulary. The Internet was new, and I believed making a de novo language to be a unique and clever way to see how it might evolve on a global scale.

My language was "DiLingo," now approaching its 50th anniversary.

(Its website is long extinct, but it is published as an e-book on Amazon.

Feeling proud of my uniqueness, I was devastated to find there were thousands (yes, THOUSANDS!) of conlangs already on the Internet.

So much for unique and clever. There were jokelangs, artlangs, auxlangs, Esperanto (which I knew about), etc., but I still submit that DiLingo was the first snarklang. So there's that. Reviews of it referred to it as, alternatively, the funniest conlang on the Internet and the most terrifying conlang on the Internet. The Esperanto site says,

DiLingo estas persona arta lingvo kreita de Walker Percy kun amuzaj celoj. En ĝi, rimoj kaj versmezuroj havas gramatikajn funkciojn. La projekto estas tre influita de l' angla lingvo kaj oni povas rigardi ĝin preskaŭ kiel moka modifo de la angla.

Ekzemploj:

Ving ding ying ding diz? (Kial vi faris tion?)

Fring ing ying? (Kie vi estas?)

Frang ang yang? (Kie vi estis?)

Ving ing'ct ying thing? (Kial vi ne estas ĉi tie?)

Once completed, it did in fact evolve, but in my head.

I created a fictitious land, Sango Jingo, where DiLingo is spoken as the national language. I cross-stitched DiLingo with the history of Sango Jingo, and the whole thing matured into hundreds of pages of interwoven conlang and fiction.

I had a ball. It was my private playground.

Until the French discovered it. It's hard to be playful when the French are looking over your shoulder.

Here is the review, in French, followed by the English translation:

La DiLingo: (en anglais) Par sUmUs cOcOOnUs, D. E.

Comment décrire l'indescriptible ? Peut-être en laissant parler son auteur. Pour lui : "DiLingo is the gutteral utteral, the paradigm of rhyme, the pox of vox." C'est complètement intraduisible et donc inutile me direz-vous. Pas vraiment, car ce qui est ntéressant dans cette phrase, c'est le rythme et la rime. Et DiLingo, c'est cela, une langue rimante et rythmante, qui devrait se prononcer avec un métronome. Du point de vue de la morphologie et de la phonologie, c'est uniquement un relex de l'anglais, c'est-à-dire qu'on retrouve les mêmes catégories, noms, verbes, adjectifs, adverbes, prépositions, mêmes temps, modes et voix (au point que comme en anglais, le futur n'est pas marqué comme un temps mais avec un mot particulier). Mais l'originalité de cette langue ne réside pas dans sa syntaxe mais dans le fait que les constructions grammaticales sont faites pour rimer et rythmer. Ainsi, de nombreux mots sont dits malléables, c'est-à-dire que leur voyelle change pour rimer avec la voyelle principale du verbe, celle qui change avec le temps. Ainsi, "je fais" se dit "ing ding", mais "j'ai fait" se dit "ang dang". Beaucoup de constructions sont malléables comme cela, ou sont faites par la répétition d'éléments rythmiques (comme le comparatif et le superlatif. Ainsi, partant de "bing" : "bon", on fait "bingabing" : "meilleur" et "bingabingabing" : "le mieux"). Même le nom de la langue est malléable et on peut dire DiLingo, DaLango, DuLungo, etc... suivant ce qui rime le mieux. Enfin, ce site est rempli de jeux de mots, d'humour (parfois un peu lourd mais c'est sympa quand même), ce qui le rend parfois difficile à suivre pour ceux qui ne sont pas américains, mais c'est bien son seul défaut. Cet humour se retrouve d'ailleurs parfois dans la syntaxe de la langue, par exemple dans la formation du génitif (possesseur), qui se forme en ajoutant ~g~mm~ng (~ est la voyelle malléable) au mot possesseur, ce qui donne "mon" : "ingigimming". Cette terminaison vient évidemment de l'anglais "Gimme" qui veut dire "Donne-moi". Tout est comme ça dans ce site. Donc, allez donc y faire un tour, histoire de vous amuser un peu.

In English:

7-99

La DiLingo : (en anglais)

How to describe the indescribable? Maybe by letting the author speak for himself:

"DiLingo is the gutteral utteral, the paradigm of rhyme, the pox of vox." It's completely impossible to translate and therefore of no use for me to tell you. Not really, because what is interesting in this sentence is the rhythm and the rhyme. And DiLingo is just that, a rhyming, rhythmical language that you should speak with a metronome. From a morphology point of view, it's unique to the English language meaning that nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and prepositions are in the same time, mode and voice (for example in English the future tense is not marked like a tense but with a particular word). But the originality of this language does not reside in its syntax but in the fact that the grammatical constructions are made for rhyme and rhythm. Thus, words can be changed so that their vowel rhymes with the main vowel of the verb which changes with the tense. "I do" becomes "ing ding," but "I did" becomes "ang dang." Many constructions can be made like that or by repeating rhythmical elements (like the comparative and the superlative). For example from "bing" : "good", one makes "bingabing" : "better" and bingabingabing" : "the best." Even the name of the language is malleable and one can say DiLingo, DaLango, DuLungo, etc... choosing the one that rhymes the best. Finally, this site is full of puns, humor (sometimes a little heavy but nice even so), which makes it sometimes difficult to follow for those who aren't American, but that's its only fault. This humor sometimes is in the syntax of the language, for example in the formation of the possessive which is formed by adding -g-mm-ng to the possessive word which gives us "mine": "ingigimming." This ending evidently comes from the English "Gimme" which means, "Give it to me." Everything is like that at this site. So, go there and have a little fun. --Translated by Dr. Liza Ann DiLeo, Baltimore.

Thus, despite Parisian rudeness, it is my mission to return to Paris and tell everyone there that I take back everything I've ever said about Jerry Lewis. And thus was signed, if only by intention, the peace accord between Sango Jingo and France.

I once read in a scholarly journal how Frency, unlike other languages, uses the right (artsy fartsy) side of the brain. Perhaps that explains their affinity for DiLingto. (Although there's a high school in Iceland (from whom I've heard) that has an official DiLingo Fan Club.

In my thickest DiLingo accent, I say to you, "An ingor for your dolor."

It was a sunny day, but I suddenly saw smoke across the line. It was normal for the Tribes to camp and make fire, yet It was my duty to see through the telescope and report each and every change across the land. I went to the observation room and switched on our new improved telescope and camera in the direction of the smoke. This was the latest developed by our own engineers and the neighbors had no idea about it. It can show them to us perfectly even if they are camouflage. It can also show the difference in body temperature of the people hiding and their surroundings. I saw through the lense and was shocked of what was before me, it was no Tribes it was a group tanks. The troop may not know that I have seen them, yet they are dangerous. I took a copy of the image by our high quality camera and rushed to my seniors. My seniors was busy training some new cadets so they asked me to wait, but I showed them the emergency symbol and they announced a break. "Let it be important, or you might be punished if it were any animal stepping on the wire like last time", one of them told me. "Yes sir", saying it with a salute I handed over the images to them. They saw it and told,"it's clear China is declaring a war on Russia and they are having tanks", the person looked at me and asked,"how long it will take for them to know that they are being watched". "Approximately 4 hours sir", I replied. "Prepare the tanks available here and inform to bring the nearest within 2-3hrs. Also prepare long distant missiles and all the other weapons, China has no clue about", he ordered.