From: William Overington (WOverington@ngo.globalnet.co.uk)
Date: Thu Sep 26 2002 - 07:05:45 EDT
Marco Cimarosti asked about what key caps have to do with mark up or text
files.
My idea is as follows.
A document would contain a sequence such as follows.
U+2604 U+0302 U+20E3 12001 U+2460 London U+2604 U+0302 U+20E2
This would have a meaning such as follows.
It was a pleasure to welcome you to our stand at the recent exhibition in
London.
Please now consider the following sequence.
U+2604 U+0302 U+20E3 12001 U+2460 Rome U+2604 U+0302 U+20E2
This would have the following meaning.
It was a pleasure to welcome you to our stand at the recent exhibition in
Rome.
This being because my published dictionary would state that sentence 12001
within the Comet Circumflex system has one parameter and has the meaning as
follows.
It was a pleasure to welcome you to our stand at the recent exhibition in
P1.
The idea is based upon the telegraphic codes of days gone by, as used, in
particular, on railway systems, except that this idea is for automated
computer translation of preset sentences with one or more parameters. For
example, someone in,say, Japan, who does not speak English (or does not
speak it well enough to produce a professional quality translation) could
communicate over the internet with someone in England who does not speak
Japanese by using sentence C_C+12001 as above, provided that both sender and
recipient have a dictionary for the Comet Circumflex system in his or her
own language. The system needs the sender to encode the document. A
recipient could, with an automated system, simply read the message in his or
her own language. However, it will hopefully be possible to have a computer
assisted encoding system whereby an end user may select sentences from topic
areas and an encoded document be produced.
In a computer system which does not have translation software installed, or
has it installed but only uses it when specifically requested, the message
would appear with a button at the start, provided that a font which carries
the characters is being used. The message could then be translated, either
automatically if translation software with a local database of C_C sentences
in the local language is available, or manually from a dictionary of
sentences. I expect that, whatever the potential for automation, to get
started translations will be done manually. What languages will be used in
early experiments will depend largely on whether any people who are fluent
in a language other than English and can also translate from English into
that language will want to try the system out, and thus upon whatever those
languages happen to be. Ultimately, if no one is interested, I can get some
translations done into a few languages by paying a professional bureau to do
the work for me. However, the scope is there that the sentences could
potentially be translated into many languages, both major languages and
minority languages.
Although I am preparing the sentences in English, it would not be necessary
for either a sender or a recipient to know English, as, once the sentences
have been translated once into their respective languages, then the code
numbers could be used directly without using English in the sending and
receiving of the messages.
I have it in mind that I might author and publish, as shareware, a
collection of sentences which could be used in business communications,
hopefully gaining shareware royalties. For example, sentences making an
enquiry about an item shown on someone's website, where the part number of
the item is a parameter of the sentence. I am also interested in producing
a set of sentences which might be useful in a distance education context. I
am thinking of producing a few sentences asking about and commenting about
the weather as a convenient way to experiment with a few sentences. For
example, a sentence such as "It is raining." would not have a parameter, a
sentence such as "The temperature in this room is P1 degrees Celsius." would
have one parameter.
There would clearly need to be lots of sentences encoded. However, I am
hoping that meaningful communication will be possible with a collection of
sentences which can be used with modern computing equipment.
By using the U+2604 U+0302 U+20E3 sequence the system can be used within an
email so that some special sentences are either translated manually or left
in the original language. That, however, is only useful for one-to-one
correspondence, for general publication of learning material only encoded
sentences could be used, though that could, in conjunction with
illustrations be potentially useful for some purposes.
I am not envisaging doing any of the translation myself, as my linguistic
knowledge is insufficient for professional quality translation work.
Certainly, sentences for this Comet Circumflex system will need to be
carefully designed so as to cover the needs of business communication
without causing problems for a translation engine inserting parameters, so
parameters will need to be either inert and not translated, or else
translated in some parameterized form.
Mr Cimarosti added the following.
>Mr. Overington, why do you have this irresistible compulsion to mix up
>apples and horses? (I feel that the usual "apples and oranges" is not
>enough to convey the idea fully.)
I like the phrase "apples and horses". I have not heard it before, is it
your original?
It has inspired me to write a song.
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/song1018.htm
I suppose that the answer to your question is that, if indeed it is a
personality feature which can be described as you suggest, that it is
because I am an inventor, interested in pushing the envelope as to what is
possible scientifically and technologically. Sometimes such an approach is
fruitless, yet at other times it can be very successful. In relation to the
keys technique which I have suggested generally, and to the Comet Circumflex
system in particular, whether these ideas will be successful or fruitless is
something which cannot presently be determined.
William Overington
26 September 2002
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