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[shanex]

Recently I have taken a great interest in languages, and I came up with an interesting idea. I'm fairly convinced this idea hasn't been tried or seriously considered, because it would have no value before the computer age

Comments

[vvvexation]

And a much bigger problem: Do you really think we'll ever have non-sentient programs that can reliably translate individual words that don't have the same set of possible meanings in every language?

[shanex]

In order for this to work, you have to only use unambiguous words, or words whose other use is so rare it can be ignored. Though that won't cover everything. Your best friend's suit might refer to litigation he has in progress. But if that were the case, you'd probably use a more direct word, like "My best friend's lawsuit".

Also no idioms. You can't say things like "make do" or "find out", etc.

But yeah, that's a good point. Hopefully it would be a small enough percentage of the time that context takes care of it.

"Ex-wife of-I KA-call today. She want alimony more. She be unmated goat".

You can probably figure unmated goat isn't precicely what your Cantonese friend wants to get across to you. But you get the general idea.

-ATW

[vvvexation]

Hopefully it would be a small enough percentage of the time that context takes care of it.

Yeah, I'm not so sure about that. Prepositions are common as hell, and those are the words that are hardest to translate. There's just no predicting what cloud of meanings will be attached to a particular preposition in a particular language, and I doubt we'll ever get non-sentient computers to reliably figure out which one is meant in any given sentence.

[shanex]

Not sure how prepositions got in to this topic.

Also, if the wrong preposition is used in a sentence you can usually figure out what was meant.

"I got in the 5:30 flight toward New York. I noticed the ice on my cup had melted so I asked the stewardess to come across and give me new ice..."

Can you give examples of problem sentences?

[shanex]

A Word from Sir Winston Churchill:

"Parts large of Europe and states old famous KA-fall or KARN GI-fall to grip of Gestapo and apparatus odious of rule Nazi, but we GI-fail non and GI-flag non. We GI-go until end. We GI-fight in France. We GI-fight on sea and ocean. We GI-fight with confidence growing and strength growing in air. We GI-defend island of we, with non concern for cost. We GI-fight on beach. We GI-fight on ground landing. We GI-fight in field and in street. We GI-fight in hill. We GI-surrender non. If (I believe non for moment one) KARN subjugate and starve island or part large of it, then KARN empire sea beyond, BO receive arm and guard from fleet British, GI-continue struggle until, eventually, World New with power and might of it rescue and liberate Old."

[xiphias]

I think you're going about this wrong. Your whole system is word-order dependent, and I think that you would be better off getting rid of word order and switching to a case/declension form. I think that word-order-dependent systems are not as robustly transferrable as case systems

[shanex]

Another example of part-of-speech markers is in modern Japanese, where they are called "particles".

"Watashi wa suteku o tabemasu". Word for word translated it is "I (subject marker) steak (direct object marker) eat".

My overall goal is to make as simple a language as possible in terms of sentence construction. Maybe particles is a way to go.

Unrelated to all this, I'll be taking Japanese lessons soon. As I get familiar with the language, I'll surely look for things to steal from it.

-ATW

[xiphias]

Yeah, particles seems to be the way to go. It has all the advantages of case endings without having the difficulty of coming up with case endings that are pronouncable with the endings of words in an arbitrary number of languages.

It's nice to know that there is a language that ACTUALLY does this in a real way, rather than in the rudimentary way of Biblical Hebrew. Stealing from Japanese sounds like a good way to proceed.