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An artistic language, or artlang,[1][2][3] is a constructed language designed for aesthetic and phonetic pleasure. Constructed languages can be artistic to the extent that artists use it as a source of creativity in art, poetry, calligraphy or as a metaphor to address themes such as cultural diversity and the vulnerability of the individual in a globalizing world.[4] They can also be used to test linguistical theories, such as Linguistic relativity.
Unlike engineered languages or auxiliary languages, artistic languages often have irregular grammar systems, much like natural languages. Many are designed within the context of fictional worlds, such as J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth. Others can represent fictional languages in a world not patently different from the real world, or have no particular fictional background attached.
The idea was for "functionlang" to be a useful term to describe a certain group of conlangs that weren't fitting into the pattern. Those being the (relatively rare) conlangs that were not artlangs, logiclangs, or auxlangs, but instead designed around some *other* specified purpose(s).
It is my artlang, spoken on an archipelago in the mid-Atlantic, somewhat south of the Azores and northwest of Madeira. The liturgical language has a number of _very_ exotic sounds, partly to indicate that it is not the normal language of the street (these sounds include several velaric egressive sounds, ie reverse clicks; one or two apicovelars; nareal fricatives; and a few others).
I'm opposed to an artlang with tones, in much the same way I'm opposed to an artlang with the many vowel sounds of English, or the consonant clusters of Russian and English.