From pmak@aaanime.net Wed Jun 19 23:11:44 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: pmak@aaanime.net X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_3_2); 20 Jun 2002 06:11:44 -0000 Received: (qmail 12178 invoked from network); 20 Jun 2002 06:11:44 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.218) by m6.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 20 Jun 2002 06:11:44 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO n21.grp.scd.yahoo.com) (66.218.66.77) by mta3.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 20 Jun 2002 06:11:44 -0000 Received: from [66.218.67.178] by n21.grp.scd.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 20 Jun 2002 06:11:44 -0000 Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2002 06:11:43 -0000 To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: Automatic Lojban -> English translation? Message-ID: In-Reply-To: <3D0F7305.5050500@bilkent.edu.tr> User-Agent: eGroups-EW/0.82 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Length: 1126 X-Mailer: Yahoo Groups Message Poster From: "pmak0" X-Originating-IP: 64.3.42.95 X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=11228792 X-Yahoo-Profile: pmak0 --- In lojban@y..., robin wrote: > >>Since Lojban is supposed to be unambiguously parsible, would it be > >>theoretically possible to write a computer program that parses Lojban and > >>outputs readable English (or any other language) without loss of meaning? > > I'd say readable and grammatical, but not idiomatic. We already have > parsers and glossers; all that is needed is something that will generate > the English syntax. Even so, it would probably be a long time before we > had anything remotely resembling natural-sounding English. I was thinking this: If people make a Lojban -> English translator, and then also a Lojban -> German, -> French, -> Spanish, -> Japanese, -> every major language translator, then Lojban becomes very powerful. Because then anyone who can write in Lojban can have it automatically machine-translated to all those target languages, and it will be understandable. I'm guessing this would be a step ahead of current machine translation (which tends to produce incomprehensible junk), if http://world.altavista.com/ is any indication of the current state-of-the-art.