Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!ittvax!dcdwest!sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!hplabs!sri-unix!briggs@RIACS.ARPA
From: briggs@RIACS.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.ai
Subject: Sanskrit
Message-ID: <12582@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 1-Oct-84 19:01:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.12582
Posted: Mon Oct  1 19:01:00 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 4-Oct-84 07:53:18 EDT
Lines: 70

From:  Rick Briggs 

        In response to the flood of messages I recieved concerning the
ambiguity-free natural language, here is some more information about it.
        The language is a branch of Sastric Sanskrit which flourished
between the 4th century B.C and 4th century A.D., although its
beginnings are somewhat older.  That it is unambiguous is without
question.  (I am writing two papers, one for laymen and one for those with
AI background).  A more interesting question is one posed by Dr. Michael
Dyer, that is "is it a natural language?".
        The answer is yes, it is natural and it is unambiguous.  It
would be difficult to call a language living and spoken for over a
millenium with as rich a literature as this langauge has anything but a
natural language.  The problem is that most (maybe all) of us are used
to languages like English (one of the worst) or other languages which
are so poor as vehicles of transmission of logical data.  We have
assumed that since all languages known have ambiguity, that it is
a necessary property of natural languages, but there is no reason to
make this assumption.  The complaint that it is awkward to speak
with the precision required to rule out ambiguity is one based on
(I would guess) the properties of Engish or other common Indo-European
languages.
        If one were to take a specific formulation such as a semantic
net and "read" it in English the result is a cumbersome mass of
detail which nobody would be willing to use in ordinary communication.
However, if one were to take that same semantic net and translate it
into the language I am studying you get (probably) one very long word
with a series of affixes which convey very compactly the actual meaning
of the semantic net.  In other words, translations from this language
to English are of the same nature as those from a semantic net to
English (hence the equivalence to semantic nets), one compact structure
to a long paragraph.
        The facility and ease with which these Indians communicated
indicates that it is possible for a natural language to serve all
purposes of artificial languages based on logic.  If one could say
what one wishes to say with absolute clarity (although with apparent
redundancy) in the same time and with the same ease as you say
part of what you mean in English, why not do so?  And if a population
actually got used to talking in this way there would be much more
clarity and less confusion in our communication.  Sastric Sanskrit
allows you to say WHAT YOU MEAN without effort.  The questions
"Can you elaborate on that?" or "What exactly are you trying to say?"
would simply not come up unless the hearer wished to go to a deeper
level of detail.
        This language was used in much the same way as language found
in technical journals today.  Scientists would communicate orally
and in writing in this language.  It is certainly a natural language.
        As to how this is accomplished, basically SYNTAX IS ELIMINATED.
Word order is unimportant, speaking is thus comparable to adding a
series of facts to a data-base.
        What interests me about this language is:
        1) Many theories derived recently in Linguistics and AI were
           independently in use over a thousand years ago, without
           computers or any need to eliminate ambiguity except for
           precise thinking and communication
        2) A natural language can serve as a mathematical (or artificial
           language) and thus the dichotomy between the two is false.
        3) There are methods for translating "regular" Sanskrit into
           Sastric Sanskrit from which much could be learned from NLP
           research.
        4) The possibilities of this language serving as interlingua
           for MT.

        There are no translated texts and it takes Sanskrit experts a
very long time to analyze the texts, so a translation of a full work
in this language is a way off. However, those interested can get
a hold of "Vaiyakarana-Siddhanta-Laghu-Manjusa" by Nagesha Bhatta.

Rick Briggs
NASA Ames