Hi, As internationalization proceeds I thought this might be a good time to start a thread on the subject of the "Universal Networking Language" (UNL).
My proposition is this: - That SPI seek representation at the The United Nations University/Institute of Advanced Studies (UNU/IAS). Currently the technical documentation is available to members only (as far as I know). - Select key documents (e.g. Debian Social Contract) and translate them into UNL. - Use the "Bazaar" model of systems development to prove the syntax of the UNL in the "real world". Imagine if major debian systems were designed with UNL as the base language... The following url is a pretty good description. The quote is from the opening paragraph. <http://www.ias.unu.edu/research_prog/science%20technology/universalnetwork_language.html> "Project abstract UNL stands for "Universal Networking Language", an electronic language that enables communication between different native languages. It is a system of "enconverter" and "deconverter" software that will reside on the Internet, and will be compatible with standard network servers. Any person with access to the Internet will be able to "enconvert" text from a range of native languages into UNL. Just as easily, any UNL text can be "deconverted" from UNL into native languages." Note that UNL is directed toward are natural languages. The idea is that it is possible to express the "true" meaning of a concept in some "Universal Grammer" and that this representation can be translated into any other language. All translators implicitly require this to be true. Translation consists of two steps: - parse a document through some interface into some data structures - export the data structures through some interface to a document. The data stuctures are preseved as UNL. The ramifications of this to debian are if documents are created and proofed as "enconverted" UNL documents they can "deconverted" into specific natural languages. This would make debian an international system (which couldn't hurt Bruce's presentation next month ;-) I have my doubts about the ability of getting a good "enconverter" to work without significant human interaction. I do belive that getting a good "deconverter" is possible, It is for this reason that I am suggesting formulating the debian documentation in UNL. P.S. Some other good urls: <http://unl.ias.unu.edu/eng/unlsystem-e.gif> <http://www.ias.unu.edu/> -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
