Lojban

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>]

UC> > Not quite that frame of mind.  We used several English synonyms and l
UC>  > computer decide which one matched up with phonemes from other langua
UC>  > best.  In this case, you are correct that "view" was the word chosen
UC>  > that may or may not have been because of similarity with European la
UC>  > words.  We tried "see" as well.
UC>
UC>  Did you also choose from synonyms in the same way for other
UC> languages?
UC>  (esp. Chinese)

Yes and no.  Since I am a native English speaker, I have a much broader
knowledge of my language's vocabulary, and the tolerable limits of
memory hook than I do for other languages.  On the other hand, for other
languages, I sometimes was limited in synonym ability simply because the
dictionary did not list multiple possibilities that I could check on.
Also, different people did different languages, and one person was very
prone to only trying for a single word for each concept especially in
Hindi, which he could barely read.  (Arabic was a particular mixed bag,
since in addition to synonyms, you have to deal with various infix
vowels which affect recognition scores but often make little difference
in the concept as seen by an Arabic speaker - but of course we never
knew which forms the algorithm would prefer, so Arabic almost certainly
got shortchanged in the word making.  Chinese and Spanish probably had
the best representation among non-English, with Russian not too far
behind, though suffering from misunderstandings of Russian morphology
and phonetics.

So, Chinese is particularly well-covered, especially if you are finding
the synonyms we used relevant.  Probably not as well covered as English,
but there were probably two synonyms or more for manyif not most Chinese
contributions.

It is nice to know that you have chosen exactly the technique we would
prefer people to use (identify the language component, then use it as a
memory hook, rather than trying to go the other way).  Your testimony is
the most powerful statement for our approach I have had in a long time
(the recognition score technique has been under almost relentless attack
by American English speakers who would probably prefer the words to be
more recognizable.

lojbab
Cc: u7911005@[140.113.4.17] cowan