Personally, I've had other responsibilities to take care of.
But I don't want it to be that nothing happens if I'm not here to keep it moving.
Conversation doesn't have to be restricted to 'the new language'. Have some fun. Talk about your favourite languages. Play some word games, whatever.
I'll post more as I have time.

I encourage you all to do the same!

The problem, as I see it, is that "you all" is, in fact, just me. And I'm actually quite busy myself with being in Canada and stuff.

Perhaps I'll start posting again when I'm back in Germany, even if this forum is just a kind of public ICQ at the moment. Good to know that someone's still listening at least.

I am still around too. Had to log off late last year due to family issues. Situation a bit better now, but I have been busy with a number of other matters. Besides, I had run out of new ideas (nobody seemed to like my suggestions ), so I thought I would take a break as no one else was posting either.

In what spare time I have, I decided to give Esperanto another chance. As an exercise that combines my learning more of EO and my wanting to learn MS Access, I have been working on a project that will eventually include a database of EO words and a translation table into (initially) EN. A user will also be able to use it to translate EO into other languages (and vice versa), but someone else will have to provide these other language translations (EN is the only language I am competent in -- and some would argue against that too ). What I would like eventually (if my efforts are successful) is to install it on a web server somewhere and operate it like a Wiki (where users can add new words -- especially those who are more skilled at EO than I am, or who are prepared to add translations into other languages). However, I am a long way short of having it ready for others to use (not even at beta level).

Cheers,
Lyn.

Good to see you're still around, too.

I'm not sure if I get the purpose of your project. Will it be some kind of dictionary?

The database will contain a list of EO words in one table, with translations into other languages, each in a separate table. At present there is only one Alia Lingvo table (EN), but the infrastructure already exists to add further language tables (for Latin languages only).

If I complete the project successfully (and that could still be a couple of years away yet), I would like to see if any others in the EO community are interested in looking at it and/or using it (and possibly adding to the translations, whether in EN or some other language). However, I don't care if I am the only user in the end -- I am doing it partly as an exercise in learning MS Access database tool, and partly because I am not satisfied with the EO translation tools available online.

There are a number of EO translation tools available online or for download, but none of the ones I have discovered so far is completely satisfactory. Probably the pick of the crop IMO are Reta Vortaro (ReVo) and the Lernu! tool. ReVo has a very comprehensive list of EO words, but the definitions are all in EO as well, which often makes it hard work trying to grasp the meaning (in EN) of a word. Also, it takes time to find a word and look up its meaning. There are translations into other languages, but mostly these are not very comprehensive -- especially the EN translations (if any are given at all). Actually I have been mostly using the FR translations as they are more extensive (and I can read some French).

I like the concept of the Lernu! tool. It is relatively easy to use. Its biggest drawback (IMO) is its limited vocabulary. It seems that about half the words I look up in Lernu! return a big "0" (zero -- although as of today I notice that the "0" has been replaced by a big sad emoticon -- like ). Another thing I like about Lernu! is that if it cannot find a translation for a word, it will attempt to break the word down into recognisable components (affixes, roots and endings) and give separate translations for each component. Sometimes this is very helpful, at other times it returns a big confusing mess, but mostly it just returns the big "0" (or sad "smiley").

So my project is to build on the Lernu! concept, using the more comprehensive ReVo list of words and other resources. The translation tool opens a form for the user to login (for storing individual user preferences). The user can select whether translating to or from EO (currently only FROM) and can select the second language (currently only EN). The user can also select the orthographic system they wish to use for handling the special EO "hatted" characters (eg: X-sistemo, H-sistemo, etc). The tool caters for the more common systems, but one option I have included (which I haven't seen anywhere else) is an "Aŭto" option -- with this option, the tool will recognise all the common orthographic systems and automatically translate into the "hatted" characters. So if you select "Aŭto", you can use any system (or any mixture of systems) you want.

Once these preferences are selected, the user can open the EO-to-EN form (the same form will also be used for EO-to-XX where XX is any other language that may be added in future). The user will type in the EO word and press TAB or ENTER. Any "hatted" characters will be resolved into true EO characters and then the EOVortaro table will be searched for that word. If an exact match is found, it will list all EN translations in the VortaroEN table for that word. If an exact match is not found, it will try to cut off any ending and replace it with a generic ending -- for example, if the word ends in "-as", "-os", "-is", etc, it will replace that ending with "-i" (verb infinitive) and try the search again. Similarly for words to end in "-o" (from "-oj", "-on", "-ojn"), "-a" and "-e". If that still fails, it will try to find a match for the root (with no ending).

If it still fails, it will try to see if the word being searched is an abbreviation (mallongigo). Each EO word entry can also store a common abbreviation, so if direct matches for the word fail, it will search against the abbreviation field. This search is independent of punctuation, so (for example) entering "bv" (short for "bonvolu") will match abbreviation fields of "bv" or "bv." Entering "bv." will also match.

Finally, you can also search for common EO expressions such as "temas pri", "kaj tiel plu", "al antaŭ", etc. Again, the search is independent of punctuation, so "temas - pri" would also match. And of course a faster way to find "kaj tiel plu" would be to key in the abbreviation "ktp" (or "k.t.p." or "k t p", etc).

If still no matches are found, it will attempt to break the word down into its component parts and give a translation for each component (similar to Lernu!, but I hope more successfully).

There are separate forms for maintaining the tables, such as entering/editing/deleting EO words and associated Alia Lingvo translations.

In the Alia Lingvo (eg, EN) entries, I am allowing additional info to be entered to clarify the usage of the word. There are many words in EO that can be translated into different EN words, depending on context. Similarly there are many EN words that can have different EO translations depending on context. For example, the EN word "by" can be translated into "apud", "ĉe", "de", "po", "je", "per", "preter" and possibly others. I am trying to provide contextual information for each entry to help the user select the most appropriate translation.

Anyway, that's enough of that for now. On the Access side, at present it only works if the user has MS Access 2003 installed on his/her PC. I could package the finished product with MS Access Runtime (which means that the user doesn't need to have that or any other Access version installed), but I don't have access (no pun intended) to Runtime -- you need a developer's licence which can cost over $1,000. I would like to be able to package it with Runtime, but may need to find a friendly developer to provide assistance. Also, if I were to run it as a web page, it would need further adjustments (which I am not qualified to do) and someone to host the application.

But all that is at least a year off, assuming I can continue to work steadily on the project and don't get bored or fed up with it!

(Sorry for such a long post!)

Anyone here anymore?

Hi Aleco. Things have been rather quiet here over the last few months. Basically it ended up with just two of us (Steli and myself) contributing most of the postings. We both got busy with other things and I think, frankly, that we were running out of new ideas. It turns out to be very difficult to get agreement on even something as simple as what letters to include in the alphabet and what they should sound like.

However, with some new blood (I notice that there is also a second new member) perhaps we can reignite the enthusiasm that we started off with, get some new ideas circulating. One of the problems we faced was a distinct shortage of active participants. You need as many people as possible, with a varied language background, to propose good ideas and get the group's support. In the short term, this can lead to more conflict -- but if the problems can be sorted out through debate and compromise, you can end up with a more robust buy-in.

The original idea behind this forum was to explore ideas that could be utilized in some new international auxiliary language (IAL), not necessarily to go so far as to design a whole new language -- although with enough good ideas and continued enthusiasm that could have been a possibility.

I think that we have realised how hard it is, not just to design a new language, but to get enough agreement amongst potential users to make it viable. There have been literally dozens of IALs designed and launched over the last 100 years -- all but a very few have effectively bitten the dust. Only one IAL still has more than a handful of active supporters (Esperanto or EO). EO has lots of faults and there have been many attempts to reform it in the past -- all have met with failure because they could not get the majority of users to agree. So for now, EO is the only game in town, warts and all.

I presume that you have read through much of the work done so far in this forum. If you have some good ideas to add I am sure that we would all like to see them.

I must apologise for my absence.

What can I say? Other stuff just seems to demand my attention. I still think about Ult-related stuff, and have a basic idea of how it'd work in my head. Some day I'll formulate something proper. In any case, I feel that this group isn't living up to it's potential, and I don't have the time or desire right now to try to attract new members or drum up conversation.

If anyone would like to take over as Admin, please email me.

Otherwise, the group may end up being automatically deleted due to inactivity. I'm okay with that, but it's unfair to you the members to let that happen without sufficient warning.