All, Reading programs written by non-English speakers is an interesting experience. It is no surprise that the comments are gobbledygook (no difference from English here:-), but the identifiers are very odd. Few clues as to what they represent from their spelling and they don't look like well known English abbreviations.
The phonetic symbolism research seems to have thrown up some interesting results. The idea is that there is some regularity in the pattern of sounds used to represent degrees of some property. For instance, patterns of vowel usage in words representing large objects vs small objects. People seem to be aware of these patterns and there is some research showing commonality of patterns occur across languages. http://www.conknet.com/~mmagnus/ is an interesting reference. Does anybody know of any research done of program identifier usage across different human languages? derek -- Derek M Jones tel: +44 (0) 1252 520 667 Knowledge Software Ltd mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Applications Standards Conformance Testing http://www.knosof.co.uk - Automatic footer for [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---------------------------------- To unsubscribe from this list, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] unsubscribe discuss To join the announcements list, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe announce To receive a help file, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] help This list is archived at http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40ppig.org/ If you have any problems or questions, please mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
