1. SEARCHING FOR THE PERFECT
LANGUAGE
Utopias in the information society
Advisor: José María Díaz Nafría
Hessel Maximilian Searching for the perfect language 1
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2. Content
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Basics
Logical approaches
Artificial Languages
Connection to
information society
Conclussion
Searching for the perfect language
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3. Historic context
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Has there ever been a universal language?

4. Reasons
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Why do we need an universal language?

5. Prerequirements
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• Universal
• Easy to learn & use
• Precise
• Computable

6. Dante (1265-1321)
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• Make Italian as best as possible
• Non-universal approach
• Not an uptopien idea

7. Ramon Llull(1223-1316)
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• Tried to reach all humans
• Ars Magna = system of a
perfect universal language
• Based on mathematic
principles (universal)
• Killed by Saracenes(legend)

8. Francis Bacon(1561-1626)
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„To be free from idola(religion) – we
need a new language“
=>Alphabet of human thoughts

9. Descartes(1596-1650)
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• Break problems down so far
they can be solved without
doubt
• Decimal based language

10. John Wilkins (1614-1672)
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de deb deba
Element First element
(fire)
Part of the
element(flame)
• Complete approach to an
analytic language
• System tabular background
• 3 layers
• 40 classes – subclasses -species

11. The analytic language of John Wilkins
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Salmon Zana
Scaled fish
Lives in rivers
With ruddy(red) meat
• Dystopia dealing with J. Wilkins
• Complexe system
• Abitrary classification
• How could we classify the universe, if we
don‘t know what the universe is?
• How can we know the universe fits into a
senseful system?
By Jorge Luis Borges 1937

12. Leibniz(1646-1716)
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• Cosmopolitical humanist
• Unify the entire human species
• Imperfections of natural languages
• Thought to manifest itself in a
machine
• Binary systems

13. Esperanto - 1887
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Domo Doma
Home / House Homely
• Most widely spoken constructed language
• Between 10.000 – 2.000.000 fluet speakers
• Based on Romance Languages, influenced
by German, English, Russian
• Easy to learn
• Supports universal communication
By Doktoro Esperanto (Ludwig Zamenhof 1859 – 1917)

14. English
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• Language of science
• Important for business & travel
• Most important language of the world wide web
• Spread through the Empire & Technology
• Basic english consists only of 850 words

15. In context of the Internet
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16. Noam Chomsky(*1928)
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• Linguist & intellectual
• The language as a system of knowledge
• Universal grammar: fixed global principles
(genes) + binary parameters (education)
• Many aspects of linguistic competence
are already there, kids don‘t need to learn
them
• Focus on the grammar not on the context
• Big dispute in the scientific community

17. Effect of Chomsky`s work
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• Together with A. Turing
• Natural languages viewed by a
mathematic perspective
• Layed the bases for current informatik
developments
• Turing machine / Turing test
• Chomsky hirarchy – theoretic background
of compailers / computer linuistics +
basics for translation computer

18. 18Hessel Maximilian Searching for the perfect language
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„The language doesn‘t reflect a
platonic pre constructed term
universe, but contributes to
building it.“
Umberto Eco 1993

19. Sources:
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• Mattleart – The information society
• J.L. Borges – Die analytische Sprache
John Wilkins
• Umberto Eco – Die Suche nach der
vollkommenen Sprache
• quisestlullus.narpan.net/eng/index_eng.ht
ml
• chomsky.info/bios/2004----.htm
• utopiaordystopia.com/tag/alan-turing/