Acadon is a
Controlled Language (CL), that is to say that it is a consciously designed
language with carefully controlled phonetics, structure, and vocabulary designed
to reduce ambiguity and complexity and provide for more efficient communication
on a worldwide scale. Most immediately, Acadon can give those who are not
native speakers of English wider and better access to data on the Internet. But
it has many additional uses.
We will leave it
to professional linguists to decide whether Acadon qualifies as a Controlled
Natural Language (CNL) or not. We feel it is natural enough to fall in that
category. Perhaps it could be called a subset of English. However, the issue of
terminology is not basic to what Acadon is designed to do. Those interested in
CNLs can find information on the web. One definition: "Controlled Natural
Languages are subsets of natural languages whose grammars and dictionaries have
been restricted in order to reduce or eliminate both ambiguity and complexity.
Traditionally, controlled natural languages fall into two major categories:
those that improve the readability for human readers, in particularly for
non-native speakers, and those that improve the computational processing of a
text."
One of the
unique features of Acadon is that it is linked to the written English language.
This means that it is what we call a Linked Alternative Language (LAL). Acadon
differs from all other designed languages in that it is a LAL. With its link to
English, Acadon can immediately translate any English text into its own
vocabulary and format. This is done in an non-lossy manner, that is without any
errors or loss of meaning. It is, and always will be, impossible for Internet
translation programs to produce non-lossy texts.
The concept of a
Linked Alternative Languages is unique to us.
http://www.google.com/patents/US6275789
While such LALs can be created with linkage to Chinese, Japanese, or any other
language, we have not done anything more than a few tests along this line.
We wish to make
it clear that Acadon is not designed to be used as a Pivot Language (PL), a
language used as a universal means of translation between two other languages.
(Pivot Languages do not work well, though English is sometimes used as such.
Acadon would incidentally serve this purpose better than English.)
While Acadon is
most properly a Controlled Language of some sort, it also falls in the category
of the International Auxiliary Language (IAL). An IAL is a language that can be
used as a second language for communication between persons belonging to
differing linguistic cultures. Latin was long used as such in Europe, Classical
Chinese in much of East Asia, Sanskrit in South Asia, etc. Of course, these
languages were regional, not global, while most IALs today have global
pretentions.
There have been
many artificially designed IALs, such as Volapük, Esperanto, Ido, or
Interlingua. That such artificial languages can be used quite normally is most
particularly shown by Esperanto, especially by its use in Eastern Europe, and
by the fact that some children have been quite normally raised with it as their
first language.
Acadon is very,
very different from all the many IALs that have been spun on the Internet. It
has features none of them have. It also lacks many of the features that have
limited the success of such projects.
How Acadon
differs from all other controlled language and artificial language projects
will be discussed in a further note here.
Best
regard, Leo
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