Subject: Re: Software Translation of Lojban (was: Re: [lojban] eurolinux proposing lojban for community patent

From: PILCH Hartmut <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2001 12:20:14 +0100 (CET)

> On a related note, I can imagine a fairly simple program that exposes a
> series of dynamic gui components that enable a non-Lojban user to express
> themselves in Lojban. It could use dictionary synonym lookups for the main
> selbri which pop up controls for the filling of the sumti places, drop
> down menus listing all the abstractions available...with an hour's
> practice, the le naljboka'e could quickly write grammatical Lojban.

> This is something that I am able to design and build (Java Schwing!),
> although I am somewhat busy right now.

It is what the UNL (Unified Network Language) people are providing (or
promising to provide). It is really a secondary problem solution. The
primary problem is on the ll2en side: "Provided I have a text written in
LL by a very proficient LL speaker, can the automatic translations reach
such a level of quality that at least a careful reader will be able to
understand them 100% correctly (even if the style is not optimal)?"

During the initial stage, programming efforts should probably concentrate
on generating various levels of english from LL parser output. If there
is any user interface design to be done, then perhaps for illustrating the
meaning structure to a naive reader, taking him step by step from plain
english to logician's english and ultimatly LL, in case he has any
difficulties with understanding the plain english.

> > It depends on for what a pass by a human is required.
> > Is it for correcting errors that mislead even a careful reader ?
> > Or only for improving the style to something more idiomatic ?
>
> Good question. I can't answer until the code is written. Take a look at
> the English output from jbofi'e/cmafi'e.

Where can they be looked at?
I would assume that this output is not yet the ultimate achievable level.

> > I would think that at least many of the babelfish errors could be avoided
> > and that the exercise would also induce people to write better patent
> > descriptions. Low quality of patent descriptions regularly cause a lot
> > of trouble.

> Aren't we talking about the patents themselves being written in Lojban?

yes.
if they are written in LL, people will write more carefully.

> > Btw someone told me he is actually using UNL in production with useful
> > results. So something like this should be possible and meaningful.
>
> OK, now what is UNL?

a secretive project headed by some japanese professors, marketed with a
lot of publicity effort geared to a laymen public, but apparently still
producing some useful results which I haven't had the time to check yet.

> > A whitepaper on this is badly needed, and imho it should be placed
> > directly on the pages of LLG. There can no doubt about its conformity
> > with the public interest status of LLG. This has nothing to do with
> > lobbying, especially if it is written in a serious, non-propagandistic
> > way.
>
> Agreed! Unfortunately such a white paper is beyond my capabilities! Can
> you write it?

Unfortunately my capabilities are even more limited at the moment. I
would have hoped that the core specialists of LL take this up.

-- 
Hartmut Pilch http://phm.ffii.org/
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation	http://swpat.ffii.org/
95000 signatures against software patents http://www.noepatents.org/