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From late 1998 through 2001 the many projects of the World Language Program have had to share time resources with other priorities of the World Language Program coordinator. Because of millenialist concerns and the worsening world geopolitical situation, particularly in the Middle East, a considerable portion of his time and effort has had to go into the Ark Two Project.
The world's inhabitants and their leaders have so far shown little (more truthfully - practically no interest so far) in the development of an IAL (International Auxiliary Language). Nevertheless, the World Language Program continues to devote what resources it can obtain - to the following projects.
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Web Pal
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ACCESS System
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ANJeL Tun
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Dictionary Project
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Regularization Project
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Keyboard Project
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Script Project
(Arabic/ANJeL representation)
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Volunteer Program
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Teacher Program
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Project Gutenberg
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Universal Language Institute
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Web Pal was a working system, but it is not currently. Someday, it will hopefully again be operative. Below is its history:
The definition of the Web Pal project has come full circle. Initially the concept was to match teachers and pupils for an IAL. Because no IAL officially exists, as yet, we thought to match teachers and students of English. This idea struck many as being too colonialistic or linquistically imperialistic so we enlarged upon it to match teachers and students in any language that they desired. The Web Pal idea is sort of a pen pal idea, but over the web. People would correspond with people in the language of interest and thereby learn the language.
While many hundreds of hours were put into this project, it proved too cumbersome to handle. There was lots of expressed interest, whole highschool classes from Japan for instance, and many North Americans who liked the idea of having web friends elsewhere in the world. However, the coordination of the project just became to cumbersome. We tried having sub-coordinators for various language groups and geographic areas. And we went through four overall coordinators - but it proved to be just too great a burden and we couldn't make it work.
We also tried to automate the process, with machine readable forms and a database program. Hundreds of hours went into that effort also. With our limited resources we had to just finally give up on it and chalk it up to a learning process. In the future, with just people interested in teaching or learning the ANJeL Tun, or some universally accepted IAL, we hope to be able to use the experience that we have gained in again implementing an automated system.
You can look here at what
- Numbers of translators, the world over, have helped in translating the 18 languages that appear on the Web Pal pages but we would still like to translate the following languages:
Hindi, Hebrew, Bengali, Panjabi, Javanese, Bhari, Telugi, Marathi, Malay, Urdu, Turkish. They would then cover all the worlds most populous language groups.
The ACCESS (Auxiliary Closed Caption English with Simplied Spelling) System is described in more detail on another page.
The ANJeL Tun is currently a part of the ACCESS Project and is described in some detail there. There is also a Tutorial for anyone who like to actually be able to read the ANJeL Tun.
There is also an Translator Program that we have had on line twice in the past, but which needs to re-installed. This program is actually capable of translating into any phonetic representation of English. Here is an example of a translation from one of the earlier versions of the translator program.
The longest ongoing project of the World Language Program has been the that of developing the tools to create dictionaries. A number of different dictionaries are envisioned. A BASIC 8,000 word phonetic/pictorial dictionary and a more extended one of 40,000 words. The key concept behind both these dictionaries is that they use a very limited set of words in the definitions. Beyond these limited dictionaries, it is hoped then to make specialized dictionaries, still using phonetic spelling and the basic vocabulary, for specialties in science and the arts.
The Regularization Project has been under the direction of Antony Alexander on the Isle of Man. It is an ongoing dialog which welcomes any knowledgeable participants. For a part of the discussion - look at:
The Keyboard Project has been studied in depth an resolved in principle. Computer programs have been found that permit the assignment of any character to any key. The ANJEL Tug uses only 39 phonemic characters (compared to English which uses 52) and this permits a "shiftless" keyboard. Furthermore, using the Dvorak ergonomic principles we have done letter frequency and adjancency studies to develop optimized layouts. Until there is a universal language and script selection such information and methodology, however, remains academic.
Even more academic than keyboard layout designs, has been the study of character representations themselves. One such effort has been an attepmt to study the feasibility of English sounds with Arabic characters having the same phonetic target. If this interests you, You can view this attempt at:
The World Language Program has had a strong volunteer program with hundreds of volunteers. They have worked on many projects from making the videos to editing the dictionary database. All the World Language Projects are done by volunteers. To become more informed about our volunteer program and changes in it, as they take place, please join our mailing list!
The World Language Teacher program has already received hundreds of volunteers, along with requests for hundreds of teachers from many countries. Our goal is to make the ACCESS System available world wide but it has to first be further developed. In the interim we are doing a cooperative teacher placement program with CNteach in China. For more information about that look at China Teach. To stay aware about the status of the program please join our mailing list!
Michael Hart at the University of Illinois has made one of the great contributions to the age with his Project Gutenberg. Through his complete dedication and the monumental effort of a great many volunteers, much of the worlds classical English writings have been digitized and made available in the public domain. Michael has been a superb supporter of The World Language Program for many years and has said that he will arrange for translations from the World Language Program translator to be stored in the Project Gutenberg database.
The comic book program has been under the direction of Shawn Beilfuss since September of 1997. Shawn has had extensive experience in the field and has traveled to Japan in his studies of comic books as an art, communications and education form. We have developed a number of scripts for a character called "Shoe Boy" and the intention is to reinforce the ANJeL Tun or an accepted IAL using this medium.
The Universal Language Institute of the UNKOMMON Foundation won the first prize for Canadian Architecture in 1988. Here you can see a picture of the model and the Memorial associated with it.
The World Language Program has accumulated a few essays on the subject of IAL, but would like to store at this site any other contributions anyone would like to make along with any proposals for an IAL.
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