Re: Universal Language Dictionary

In a message dated 05/19/2002 04.48.33 AM, And (a-rosta@ALPHAPHE.COM) writes:

>I would be interested in people's views on the efficacy and
>utility of Rick Harrison's Universal Language Dictionary,
>which, iirc, used a combination of various strategies to
>compile a list of the 2000 most basic content words of
>language. In particular, I'd like to know
>(a) whether there are apparently strange inclusions and
>exclusions,
>(b) how far the 2000 words get you towards a functional
>vocabulary,
>(c) the extent to which the 2000 words cover semantic space,
>so that they at least serve as hypernyms for the many extra
>words that would still be needed.
    As I am using the infamous ULD (version 2) to some extent, I will try and
answer this a bit.
    Richard Harrison states quitely clearly that the ULD is "an attempt  to
create a list of concepts, described in English, along with words to express
those concepts in several 'natural' and 'artificial' (constructed)
languages." Harrison uses English, German, Dutch, and Italian - the natlangs
- and uses Esperanto, Novial and Tsolyani - the conlangs.
    Harrison's "selection of vocabulary items was influenced by: Basic
English wordlist; Esperanto baza radikaro; Loglan predicate list; Lojban
predicate list; VOA [Voice Of America] Special English wordlist; Concise
Dictionary of 26 Languages; Roget's Thesaurus; New Horizon Ladder Dictionary
of the English Language; Minimum Vocabularies of Written Chinese; Joyo kanji
list."

    AFAIK - based on email dialogues with others and my personal use so far -
this is one of the best wordlists readibly available for creating a basic
vocabulary.

    Harrison is reportedly working on Version 3 which promises to have more
languages to compare.

    NOTE: links to the ULD can be found at langmaker.com


Hanuman Zhang {HANoomaan JAHng} /'hanuma~n  dZahN/

~§~

_Ars imitatur Naturam in sua operatione._ <from Latin> = "Art is the
imitation of Nature in her manner of operation." " The most beautiful order
is a heap of sweepings piled up at random." ~ Heraclitus, c. 500 BCE

~§~ jinsei to iu mono wa, kinchou na geijyutsu to ieru deshou ~§~
<from Japanese> = lit. "one can probably say that 'life' is a precious
artform")