RE: UTC Document Register Now Public
On Friday 19 April 2013, Whistler, Ken ken.whist...@sap.com wrote: It is quite unlikely that such a document would be rejected on procedural grounds, just because it was making an argument for a change of scope, rather than being a proposal that was already clearly in scope. (I assume that is what you are asking here.) Thank you for your reply. Yes, that was what I was asking. Thank you for a precise and helpful answer. William Overington 20 April 2013
Re: Encoding localizable sentences (was: RE: UTC Document Register Now Public)
On Friday 19 April 2013, Whistler, Ken ken.whist...@sap.com wrote: You are aware of Google Translate, for example, right? Yes. I use it from time to time, mostly to translate into English: it is very helpful. If you input sentences such as those in your scenarios or the other examples, such as: Where can I buy a vegetarian meal with no gluten-containing ingredients in it please? You can get immediately serviceable and understandable translations in dozens of languages. For example: Wo kann ich ein vegetarisches Essen ohne Gluten-haltigen Bestandteile davon, bitte? Not perfect, perhaps, but perfectly comprehensible. And the application will even do a very decent job of text to speech for you. I am not a linguist and I know literally almost no German, so I am not able to assess the translation quality of sentences. Perhaps someone on this list who is a native speaker of German might comment please. I am thinking that the fact that I am not a linguist and that I am implicitly seeking the precision of mathematics and seeking provenance of a translation is perhaps the explanation of why I am thinking that localizable sentences is the way forward. There seems to a fundamental mismatch deep in human culture of the way that mathematics works precisely yet that translation often conveys an impression of meaning that is not congruently exact. Perhaps that is a factor in all of this. Thank you for your reply and for taking the time to look through the simulations and for commenting. Having read what you have written and having thought about it for a while I am wondering whether it would be a good idea for there to be a list of numbered preset sentences that are an international standard and then if Google chose to front end Google Translate with precise translations of that list of sentences made by professional linguists who are native speakers, then there could be a system that can produce a translation that is precise for the sentences that are on the list and machine translated for everything else. Maybe there could then just be two special Unicode characters, one to indicate that the number of a preset sentence is to follow and one to indicate that the number has finished. In that way, text and localizable sentences could still be intermixed in a plain text message. For me, the concept of being able to mix text and localizable sentences in a plain text message is important. Having two special characters of international standard provenance for denoting a localizable sentence markup bubble unambiguously in a plain text document could provide an exact platform. If a software package that can handle automated localization were active then it could replace the sequence with the text of the sentence localized into the local language: otherwise the open localizable sentence bubble symbol, some digits and the close localizable sentence bubble symbol would be displayed. If that were the case then there might well not be symbols for the sentences, yet the precise conveying of messages as envisaged in the simulations would still be achievable. Perhaps that is the way forward for some aspects of communication through the language barrier. Another possibility would be to have just a few localizable sentences with symbols as individual characters and to have quite a lot of numbered sentences using a localizable sentence markup bubble and then everything else by machine translation. I shall try to think some more about this. At any rate, if Margaret Gattenford and her niece are still stuck at their hotel and the snow is blocking the railway line, my suggestion would be that Margaret whip out her mobile phone. And if she doesn't have one, perhaps her niece will lend hers to Margaret. Well, they were still staying at the hotel were some time ago. They feature in locse027_simulation_five.pdf available from the following post. http://forum.high-logic.com/viewtopic.php?p=16378#p16378 They also feature in the following document available from the forum post listed below it. a_simulation_about_an_idea_that_would_use_qr_codes.pdf http://forum.high-logic.com/viewtopic.php?p=16692#p16692 That idea is not about localizable sentences, yet I found that being able to use the continuing characters and the scenario from the previous simulations was helpful in the creative writing of that simulation. William Overington 20 April 2013
RE: Encoding localizable sentences (was: RE: UTC Document Register Now Public)
Mr. Overington, I'm sorry to have to admit that I cannot follow at all your train of thought on what would be the practical value of localizable sentences in any of the forms that you are contemplating. In my mind, they would not appear to broaden the understanding between different cultures (and languages), quite the contrary. I appreciate the fact that there are several respectable members of this community who are far too polite to state bluntly what they think of the technical merits of your proposal. Sincerely, Erkki I. Kolehmainen -Alkuperäinen viesti- Lähettäjä: unicode-bou...@unicode.org [mailto:unicode-bou...@unicode.org] Puolesta William_J_G Overington Lähetetty: 20. huhtikuuta 2013 12:39 Vastaanottaja: KenWhistler Kopio: unicode@unicode.org; KenWhistler; wjgo_10...@btinternet.com Aihe: Re: Encoding localizable sentences (was: RE: UTC Document Register Now Public) On Friday 19 April 2013, Whistler, Ken ken.whist...@sap.com wrote: You are aware of Google Translate, for example, right? Yes. I use it from time to time, mostly to translate into English: it is very helpful. If you input sentences such as those in your scenarios or the other examples, such as: Where can I buy a vegetarian meal with no gluten-containing ingredients in it please? You can get immediately serviceable and understandable translations in dozens of languages. For example: Wo kann ich ein vegetarisches Essen ohne Gluten-haltigen Bestandteile davon, bitte? Not perfect, perhaps, but perfectly comprehensible. And the application will even do a very decent job of text to speech for you. I am not a linguist and I know literally almost no German, so I am not able to assess the translation quality of sentences. Perhaps someone on this list who is a native speaker of German might comment please. I am thinking that the fact that I am not a linguist and that I am implicitly seeking the precision of mathematics and seeking provenance of a translation is perhaps the explanation of why I am thinking that localizable sentences is the way forward. There seems to a fundamental mismatch deep in human culture of the way that mathematics works precisely yet that translation often conveys an impression of meaning that is not congruently exact. Perhaps that is a factor in all of this. Thank you for your reply and for taking the time to look through the simulations and for commenting. Having read what you have written and having thought about it for a while I am wondering whether it would be a good idea for there to be a list of numbered preset sentences that are an international standard and then if Google chose to front end Google Translate with precise translations of that list of sentences made by professional linguists who are native speakers, then there could be a system that can produce a translation that is precise for the sentences that are on the list and machine translated for everything else. Maybe there could then just be two special Unicode characters, one to indicate that the number of a preset sentence is to follow and one to indicate that the number has finished. In that way, text and localizable sentences could still be intermixed in a plain text message. For me, the concept of being able to mix text and localizable sentences in a plain text message is important. Having two special characters of international standard provenance for denoting a localizable sentence markup bubble unambiguously in a plain text document could provide an exact platform. If a software package that can handle automated localization were active then it could replace the sequence with the text of the sentence localized into the local language: otherwise the open localizable sentence bubble symbol, some digits and the close localizable sentence bubble symbol would be displayed. If that were the case then there might well not be symbols for the sentences, yet the precise conveying of messages as envisaged in the simulations would still be achievable. Perhaps that is the way forward for some aspects of communication through the language barrier. Another possibility would be to have just a few localizable sentences with symbols as individual characters and to have quite a lot of numbered sentences using a localizable sentence markup bubble and then everything else by machine translation. I shall try to think some more about this. At any rate, if Margaret Gattenford and her niece are still stuck at their hotel and the snow is blocking the railway line, my suggestion would be that Margaret whip out her mobile phone. And if she doesn't have one, perhaps her niece will lend hers to Margaret. Well, they were still staying at the hotel were some time ago. They feature in locse027_simulation_five.pdf available from the following post. http://forum.high-logic.com/viewtopic.php?p=16378#p16378 They also feature in the following document available
RE: Encoding localizable sentences (was: RE: UTC Document Register Now Public)
LOL...
{phone}
On Apr 20, 2013 8:44 PM, Erkki I Kolehmainen e...@iki.fi wrote:
Mr. Overington,
I'm sorry to have to admit that I cannot follow at all your train of
thought on what would be the practical value of localizable sentences in
any of the forms that you are contemplating. In my mind, they would not
appear to broaden the understanding between different cultures (and
languages), quite the contrary. I appreciate the fact that there are
several respectable members of this community who are far too polite to
state bluntly what they think of the technical merits of your proposal.
Sincerely, Erkki I. Kolehmainen
-Alkuperäinen viesti-
Lähettäjä: unicode-bou...@unicode.org [mailto:unicode-bou...@unicode.org]
Puolesta William_J_G Overington
Lähetetty: 20. huhtikuuta 2013 12:39
Vastaanottaja: KenWhistler
Kopio: unicode@unicode.org; KenWhistler; wjgo_10...@btinternet.com
Aihe: Re: Encoding localizable sentences (was: RE: UTC Document Register
Now Public)
On Friday 19 April 2013, Whistler, Ken ken.whist...@sap.com wrote:
You are aware of Google Translate, for example, right?
Yes. I use it from time to time, mostly to translate into English: it is
very helpful.
If you input sentences such as those in your scenarios or the other
examples, such as:
Where can I buy a vegetarian meal with no gluten-containing ingredients
in it please?
You can get immediately serviceable and understandable translations in
dozens of languages. For example:
Wo kann ich ein vegetarisches Essen ohne Gluten-haltigen Bestandteile
davon, bitte?
Not perfect, perhaps, but perfectly comprehensible. And the application
will even do a very decent job of text to speech for you.
I am not a linguist and I know literally almost no German, so I am not
able to assess the translation quality of sentences. Perhaps someone on
this list who is a native speaker of German might comment please.
I am thinking that the fact that I am not a linguist and that I am
implicitly seeking the precision of mathematics and seeking provenance of a
translation is perhaps the explanation of why I am thinking that
localizable sentences is the way forward. There seems to a fundamental
mismatch deep in human culture of the way that mathematics works precisely
yet that translation often conveys an impression of meaning that is not
congruently exact. Perhaps that is a factor in all of this.
Thank you for your reply and for taking the time to look through the
simulations and for commenting.
Having read what you have written and having thought about it for a while
I am wondering whether it would be a good idea for there to be a list of
numbered preset sentences that are an international standard and then if
Google chose to front end Google Translate with precise translations of
that list of sentences made by professional linguists who are native
speakers, then there could be a system that can produce a translation that
is precise for the sentences that are on the list and machine translated
for everything else.
Maybe there could then just be two special Unicode characters, one to
indicate that the number of a preset sentence is to follow and one to
indicate that the number has finished.
In that way, text and localizable sentences could still be intermixed in a
plain text message. For me, the concept of being able to mix text and
localizable sentences in a plain text message is important. Having two
special characters of international standard provenance for denoting a
localizable sentence markup bubble unambiguously in a plain text document
could provide an exact platform. If a software package that can handle
automated localization were active then it could replace the sequence with
the text of the sentence localized into the local language: otherwise the
open localizable sentence bubble symbol, some digits and the close
localizable sentence bubble symbol would be displayed.
If that were the case then there might well not be symbols for the
sentences, yet the precise conveying of messages as envisaged in the
simulations would still be achievable.
Perhaps that is the way forward for some aspects of communication through
the language barrier.
Another possibility would be to have just a few localizable sentences with
symbols as individual characters and to have quite a lot of numbered
sentences using a localizable sentence markup bubble and then everything
else by machine translation.
I shall try to think some more about this.
At any rate, if Margaret Gattenford and her niece are still stuck at
their hotel and the snow is blocking the railway line, my suggestion would
be that Margaret whip out her mobile phone. And if she doesn't have one,
perhaps her niece will lend hers to Margaret.
Well, they were still staying at the hotel were some time ago.
They feature in locse027_simulation_five.pdf available from the following
post.
Re: Encoding localizable sentences (was: RE: UTC Document Register Now Public)
On 2013-04-20 2:38 AM, William_J_G Overington wrote: I am thinking that the fact that I am not a linguist and that I am implicitly seeking the precision of mathematics and seeking provenance of a translation is perhaps the explanation of why I am thinking that localizable sentences is the way forward. There seems to a fundamental mismatch deep in human culture of the way that mathematics works precisely yet that translation often conveys an impression of meaning that is not congruently exact. Perhaps that is a factor in all of this. Natural language lacks the logic and precision of mathematics, and is only unpredictably unambiguous. That's why lojban was invented. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lojban -- Curtis Clarkhttp://www.csupomona.edu/~jcclark Biological Sciences +1 909 869 4140 Cal Poly Pomona, Pomona CA 91768
Re: Encoding localizable sentences (was: RE: UTC Document Register Now Public)
I am wondering whether it would be a good idea for there to be a list of numbered preset sentences that are an international standard and then if Google chose to front end Google Translate with precise translations of that list of sentences made by professional linguists who are native speakers, then there could be a system that can produce a translation that is precise for the sentences that are on the list and machine translated for everything else. Phrase-based machine translation goes much further: it already lets you pair up far more sentences than would fit into a standard with a limited code inventory such as Unicode, and it lets you pair up phrases. The fact that translations are not precise is a problem that has to do with context and with natural language per se. Maybe there could then just be two special Unicode characters, one to indicate that the number of a preset sentence is to follow and one to indicate that the number has finished. That would belong into a higher-level protocol, not Unicode. If that were the case then there might well not be symbols for the sentences, yet the precise conveying of messages as envisaged in the simulations would still be achievable. The sentences will be as precise as the scope of the sentence inventory allows. Enumerating sentences or phrasal fragments (I'm hesitant to talk of phrases, which for me have constituent nature, but maybe that's just me) is unrealistic unless you are trying to cover only a /very/ limited domain. If all you encode is (say) requests for meals with the 100 most frequently wanted combinations of nutritional restrictions, your sentence inventory will encode those requests precisely, but as soon as you're trying to make adjustments to your formulaic requests (you're willing to eat /any/ vegetarian, gluten-free meal each time of the day and day of the year? of /any/ size?), the sentences won't be of use anymore. This is really why an approach that enumerates large text chunks is unworkable. (I won't say useless, but of limited use; point-at-me picture books and imprecise translations are likely to do a tolerable job already.) The number of sentences you'll need will be exponential in the number of ingredient options you are intending to vary over. In any case, we are all left guessing about the intended coverage of any set of sentences you have mind. From your previous writings I'm guessing (as implied earlier) that you mean something like travel and emergency communication, but that is already a large domain. If you try to delimit the coverage and come up with a finite list of sentences, you will see that you'll end up with far too many. You'd also need to think about how to make these sentences accessible (via number/ID? that would be difficult or require training for the user if the number of sentences isn't very small). What if you only want the inventory of a travel phrasebook? For that, you have the travel phrasebook (hierarchically organized, not by number), and I have heard of limited-domain computers/apps for crisis situations (the details elude me at the moment). Perhaps that is the way forward for some aspects of communication through the language barrier. You would need to specify which problems precisely you are attempting to solve, what is wrong with the approaches presently available, and why/how your approach does a better job. Stephan
