Research & Development

The science behind sylang and its ongoing evolution

Research Papers

Explore our published research on sylang and its applications in language model optimization.

One token, one meaning: Sylang Prime's assault on polysemanticity

Sylang Research Team (2025)

This paper explores how Sylang Prime's morphological design fundamentally reimagines the relationship between tokens and meaning, directly confronting one of the most fundamental challenges in language models: polysemanticity. By deliberately engineering a language where morphological structure aligns with tokenization patterns, Sylang Prime achieves a 45-60% reduction in token usage while dramatically reshaping how meaning is encoded within language models.

Sylang Prime: LLM Performance and Benefits Report

Sylang Research Team (2025)

This comprehensive report details the performance improvements and benefits observed when using Sylang Prime with large language models. The study includes benchmarks across multiple LLM architectures, demonstrating consistent improvements in context utilization, processing speed, and semantic precision.

Sylang: Engineering a constructed language for LLM token efficiency

Sylang Research Team (2025)

This paper details the engineering principles behind Sylang, a constructed language specifically designed to optimize token efficiency in LLM interactions. It explores the core design principles, including morphological optimization, semantic density, syntax compression, and UTF-8 alignment, that enable Sylang to achieve a 45-60% token reduction compared to English.

Designing an Efficient sylang Prime Tokenizer for Gemma 3 and Qwen 3 Models

Sylang Research Team (2025)

This technical paper presents the design and implementation of a custom tokenizer for Sylang Prime, optimized for both Gemma 3 and Qwen 3 models. It details the tokenization algorithms, optimal vocabulary size, morphological segmentation strategies, and fusion token mining techniques that enable the tokenizer to achieve a 55-60% token reduction while preserving semantic clarity.

Research Overview

sylang is the result of extensive research in computational linguistics, language design, and AI optimization. Our work focuses on creating a language that maximizes computational efficiency while remaining learnable by humans.

Beyond Tokenization: Designing the Ultimate LLM-Optimized Language

Published: 2025 | Authors: The sylang Research Team

Constructed languages have been designed for centuries to serve human communication needs, but the rise of Large Language Models (LLMs) creates a new imperative: languages explicitly optimized for computational efficiency while maintaining human usability. This research presents a framework for evolving sylang—a minimalist notation system—into a comprehensive constructed language that maximizes LLM efficiency, conceptual precision, and human learnability.

This foundational paper outlines the core principles behind sylang's design, addressing the tripod of competing demands: computational efficiency, semantic precision, and human learnability. It details the orthographic, morphological, syntactic, and lexical design choices that make sylang uniquely suited for human-AI communication.

Key findings include:

  • Token efficiency improvements of 55-60% compared to English
  • Enhanced embedding precision through structured semantic relationships
  • Improved reasoning capabilities through explicit logical marking
  • Systematic learnability for human users

Current Research Areas

Theoretical Explorations

Information Theoretic Boundaries

Investigating the minimum encoding required for semantic information, exploring the theoretical limits of language compression while maintaining meaning.

Cognitive Processing Models

Studying human comprehension efficiency of optimized language structures, balancing machine efficiency with human cognitive constraints.

Computational Linguistics Foundations

Extending formal language theory to account for the unique requirements of LLM processing, developing new frameworks for language design.

Semantic Space Topology

Researching optimal embedding space organization principles to enhance semantic precision and reduce ambiguity in language representation.

Applied Development

Multi-modal Extensions

Developing visual, auditory, and tactile representations of sylang to create a comprehensive communication system across modalities.

Neural Architecture Optimization

Designing custom attention mechanisms and specialized layers for efficient processing of sylang structures in neural networks.

Dynamic Adaptation Systems

Creating self-extending vocabulary and context-sensitive compression mechanisms to allow sylang to evolve with use.

Formal Verification Integration

Incorporating theorem proving, model checking, and static analysis techniques to ensure logical consistency in sylang expressions.

Development Timeline

Concept Phase

Initial research into language optimization for LLMs, exploring the theoretical foundations of computational linguistics and language design.

Key Milestones:

  • Theoretical framework development
  • Initial phonological inventory
  • Basic morphological principles

Alpha Release

First implementation of sylang with core language specification, including basic vocabulary and grammar rules.

Key Milestones:

  • Core language specification
  • Initial vocabulary (500 items)
  • Basic grammar documentation
  • Proof-of-concept examples

Beta Phase (Current)

Expansion and refinement of sylang, with comprehensive documentation and expanded vocabulary.

Key Milestones:

  • Full grammar documentation
  • Expanded vocabulary (3,000 items)
  • Initial learning materials
  • Prototype translation system
  • Custom tokenizer training

Release (Upcoming)

Complete language specification with comprehensive learning materials and tools.

Key Milestones:

  • Complete language specification
  • Comprehensive learning materials
  • Full vocabulary (5,000+ items)
  • Translation tools and APIs
  • LLM fine-tuning resources

Corpus Development (Future)

Creation of a comprehensive corpus for training LLMs on sylang, with diverse content across domains.

Key Milestones:

  • Foundation layer (100,000 tokens)
  • Intermediate layer (500,000 tokens)
  • Advanced layer (1,000,000 tokens)
  • Domain-specific extensions
  • Translation pairs with English

Detailed Development Timeline

This timeline outlines the key stages and features of Sylang Prime's design and refinement process.

Conceptual Foundation

  • Initial concept of Sylang as a minimalist notation system using specialized symbols to represent relationships between concepts
  • Recognition of the "tripod of competing demands" for an LLM-optimized language: token efficiency, human usability, and conceptual precision
  • Acknowledgment of the "token premium" in non-English languages and the need to address it

Revised Sylang (Early Stage)

Phonology Refinement

  • Reduction and balancing of consonant inventory, removing rare/misheard sounds
  • Inclusion of voiced/voiceless consonant pairs only where unambiguous for English speakers
  • Retention of /ʃ/, /tʃ/, and /dʒ/
  • Elimination of tone and unpredictable accent
  • Simplification of syllable structure (primarily CV, CVC; highly restricted clusters, open syllables preferred)
  • Ensuring maximal distinctiveness between phonemes

Morphology Development (Agglutinative)

  • Establishment of agglutinative morphology with clear morpheme boundaries and no irregular fusion
  • Defining a hierarchical affix order (derivational closest to root, inflectional at edge, prefixes for negation/modality/nuances)
  • Designing compact affixes (often one syllable, sometimes one letter) without sacrificing uniqueness
  • Shortening of some affixes (e.g., sho- to xo-, -sha to -xa)
  • Emphasis on minimal redundancy (no gender on nouns, no subject-verb agreement in person/number)
  • Developing systematic derivation principles (building new words from roots)

Syntax Design

  • Establishing a strict Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) order for main clauses
  • Implementing a verb-final order for subordinate and relative clauses (ko and ze marking the start of these clauses, the verb marking the end)
  • Adopting explicit coordinating conjunctions (ja, ora)
  • Using sentence-initial particles for questions (ke for yes/no) and imperatives (du, xo)
  • Simplifying subject/object marking by making case suffixes (-va, -na) generally optional in standard SVO
  • Prohibiting center-embedding

Sylang Prime (Further Refinement)

Character Set & Phonological Optimization

  • Refining the character set to exactly 21 ASCII characters for visual distinction and tokenizer-friendliness
  • Explicitly assigning 'x' to /ʃ/, 'q' to /ŋ/, and 'c' to /tʃ/
  • Reaffirming CV(C) syllable structure and fixed penultimate stress
  • Explicitly stating no consonant clusters between vowels (maximal one consonant)

Morphological Compaction

  • Further compacting tense (-t past, -s future), aspect (-p perfective, -r imperfective), and negation (n-) markers to single consonants
  • Using zero morpheme for present tense to maximize efficiency
  • Solidifying the strict hierarchical order of affixes (ROOT → Derivational → Valency → Aspect → Tense → Mood/Modality)
  • Adding optional noun morphology for definiteness (a-), topic (na-), and focus (za-)
  • Adding a passive marker (-f), though noted as used sparingly

Lexicon & Tokenizer Engineering

  • Designing vocabulary to optimize for embedding space relationships (related concepts share phonological patterns)
  • Limiting core roots to CV, CVC, or CVCV patterns
  • Developing a custom tokenizer with morphological awareness and semantic coherence
  • Implementing a two-pass hybrid approach for tokenization

Ongoing Development

  • Planning and building a structured corpus in layers (Foundation, Intermediate, Advanced, Domain-specific extensions)
  • Creating specialized training subsets (translation pairs, reasoning chains, dialogic exchanges)
  • Outlining a structured acquisition methodology (Foundation, Practical, Mastery levels) with dedicated learning resources
  • Setting specific targets for token reduction (55-60%) and context utilization improvement (45-60%)
  • Ongoing process of testing against tokenizer vocabularies and fine-tuning efficiency

Get Involved

sylang is an open research project, and we welcome contributions from researchers, linguists, developers, and language enthusiasts.

For Researchers

If you're interested in computational linguistics, language design, or AI optimization, we invite you to contribute to the theoretical foundations of sylang.

  • Explore our research papers
  • Contribute to ongoing research
  • Propose new research directions

For Developers

Help us build the tools and infrastructure needed to make sylang accessible and useful for a wide range of applications.

  • Contribute to our GitHub repository
  • Develop learning tools and resources
  • Create applications that use sylang

For Language Enthusiasts

Learn sylang and help us refine it through practical use and feedback.

  • Join our learning community
  • Provide feedback on learning materials
  • Create content in sylang
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