Seven Basic Principles of Acadon

The Seven Basic Principles of Acadon:

Those involved in the design and presentation of Acadon have kept these basic principles in mind.

1) Acadon is itself -- unique and integral.

Acadon is not ‘experimental English,’ or ‘latter-day Latin,’ or ‘a kinder Klingon’ or ‘a new Esperanto.” It is only Acadon. If it seems different or even odd on first glance, so be it. Acadon marches to its own drummer.

2) Acadon is based on what Acadon can do.

Acadon seeks to universalize access to data and improve cross-cultural communication, and all design decisions must be performance-centered in that context. Acadon users do not exhort, only describe capabilities. The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

3) Apply Occam's razor, but don't cut yourself on it.

All other things being equal, Acadon favors simplicity; yet it also promotes richness and complexity of expression -- if and when they serve established goals.

4) Chop through all Gordian knots.

If a problem has no theoretical solution, avoid its practical effects where possible. To minimize the effect of noisy channels and dissimilar linguistic habits, for example, Acadon simply avoids potentially confusing sounds at a word-by-word level.

5) Take all of the world's population into consideration.

As many users as possible should find as much familiar about Acadon as possible. To minimize the learning load, Acadon seeks the most widespread vocabulary items. No linguistic culture should be excluded simply because of current economic or educational factors. These vocabulary decisions cannot be made by any pre-established "mathematical formula" based on proportional representation for population size or by pre-selecting a
set of "major languages" for special treatment.

6) Acadon users should make no claims for Acadon that are not concrete and realistic.

Acadon must not be presented, for example, as a panacea for the political or moral problems of the world. It is a tool to deal with the linguistic dimensions of current international communication problems.

7) Recognize that Acadon cannot be perfect -- all languages have wobble.

Perfection is not a goal of the project. Acadon does not perfectly mirror reality; no language can. It will be sufficient for Acadon to be far better than English (or Chinese or Russian or Spanish ...) in a variety of ways of considerable economic and other practical value to its users.