From: William_J_G Overington (wjgo_10009@btinternet.com)
Date: Mon Jan 18 2010 - 02:43:07 CST
On Saturday 16 January 2010, Neil Harris <neil@tonal.clara.co.uk> wrote:
> It's been tried before:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Characteristica_universalis
>
> Probably the most successful attempt in recent times is
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blissymbolics
Thank you for the links.
> Perhaps you might want to take a look at the previous
> attempts before
> you try to develop your own?
Well, maybe not "before", but "concurrently", but essentially yes.
However, I have yet to find anything that does whole sentences.
My idea is to use whole sentences that do not have any "carry forward states" to one or more following sentences.
I have been told that it will not work yet I have not yet found any evidence, relating to the particular characteristics of my specific idea, that shows that it will not work.
I am aware that I must keep in mind the possibility that it will not work. I am not a linguist, though I do have some French, some Esperanto and small bits of some other languages. So I know that I am no expert in languages. Yet the dream of being able to improve communication across language barriers continues. I feel that automated systems using localizable sentences encoded into regular Unicode could potentially be very useful in the future.
Yet I am open-minded on the matter. If it is shown that it will not work then I will discontinue the project. As I say, I am not a linguist, but with the localizable sentences thus far in the experiment and the poem in this thread, it seems to work fine.
> If you are determined to repeat the experiment,
Well, "determined" seems to me to refer to be being more emphatic about it than in fact I am. Also, I am not repeating anything if that thing does not exist in the first place. If someone can find a previous experiment by someone else using whole sentences within the limits that I am using whole sentences and show that it did not work then I would indeed be interested to know about it and to learn as to why it did not work.
It is an idea that I had and I am researching. I have FontCreator 5.6 on this computer and I can make TrueType fonts using it and I have various other packages that use TrueType fonts. I have a go at the project from time to time. For example, last Saturday it was very windy here first thing in the morning, and I thought that I would add a sentence for "It is windy." to the set of localizable sentences, so I thought that I would add localizable sentences for "It is hailing." and "It is foggy." at the same time. So I then started to think of what I would use for language-independent glyphs for them. I have not yet decided on that yet, but it is fun for me to do, as art.
> you might want to
> consider developing it first outside the framework of
> Unicode, perhaps
> using the PUA, which exists for exactly this sort of
> purpose,
Actually I have been developing the system using the plane 15 Private Use Area. However, the Private Use Areas are within the framework of Unicode.
There is quite a lot of information, including some fonts that you can download if you wish, in the following thread.
http://forum.high-logic.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2672
> and then
> apply for encoding as and when your system is in widespread
> public use...
Well, I am not thinking in terms of it being me who applies for encoding.
In that manner the situation can resolve itself in a natural, harmonious manner.
If there is never any interest, then the localizable sentences are just in a few posts in the archive of the mailing list and in a few items elsewhere and maybe in a few works of art: in some ways like a rather beautiful yet specialist piece of pure mathematics.
If there is interest, whenever, and some localizable sentences, not necessarily those used in the present experiments, are implemented using private use area codes in systems such as email and mobile telephones, then the need to encode them into regular Unicode may arise and the experts who handle such matters would get the matter done.
I feel that this thread is important, though I accept that it might in fact be important only to me, because the idea of localizable sentences might get through to someone who will have a go at implementing the idea in some way. It is fine for them to do that, they do not need to ask me first nor even to tell me that they are doing it. They can use their own choice of sentences if they wish or they can use the sentences that I have used or a combination of both as they wish.
William Overington
18 January 2010
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