X-Digest-Num: 14
Message-ID: <44114.14.65.959273823@eGroups.com>
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 1998 13:32:04 -0500
From: John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org>
Subject: Universal Networking Language
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The Web site is http://www.unl.ias.unu.edu .  The "UNL page" is a dummy,
so stick to the "English page".

Here is the nearest thing to a detailed description available to
the public (looks like a translation from the Japanese):

# UNL represents information expressed in sentence as a set of relations 
# between meanings expressed by words.  Vocabulary of UNL consists of;
#	- UW (Universal Word), that represents a word meaning
#	- Relation label, that represents a relationship between UWs
#	- Attribute label, that expresses further definition or
#	additional information of UW which appears in sentence.

# A UW represents meanings a word express by an English word which can
# express those meanings with a suffix of possible relationship with
# other words which denote the specific meaning.

# UW is a word that makes up UNL, and is set so as to denote a specific
# meaning. Word in English is applied as label to identify UW. A UW
# which is simply labeled with a word is regarded as to denote the whole 
# meaning that the original English word can convey. In order to express
# more specific meaning, a method is introduced to limit the range of
# meaning that can be denoted by UW. UW's meaning can be limited in the
# description of distinctive relationship with other UW that can hold
# only with this specific meaning of UW.

Further details are available only to members of the UNL organization.
Sounds pretty crude and primitive compared to Lojban.

http://www.unl.ias.unu.edu/eng/brochure/b7.html gives contact info.

-- 
John Cowan	http://www.ccil.org/~cowan		cowan@ccil.org
	You tollerday donsk?  N.  You tolkatiff scowegian?  Nn.
	You spigotty anglease?  Nnn.  You phonio saxo?  Nnnn.
		Clear all so!  'Tis a Jute.... (Finnegans Wake 16.5)