Re: [tlug] OT. Linguistic ?

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

>>>>> "Mauro" == Mauro Sauco <sauco@example.com> writes:

    Mauro> The question is: Are 20,736 words enough for making a
    Mauro> "language"?

Wrong question.  On the technical side, you can always string together
multiple words, even for West Greenland Eskimo.  On the human side,
the problem is, how are you going to get people to remember 20,000
random numbers (base 12, yet)?  The average human being can't remember
one PIN for their bank card....

If you've got a PDA, why not use its native input capabilities, and
just "spell it out"?  Allow abbreviations (a la keitai messaging) and
get a predicting parser (see below).

    Mauro> I am trying to make something that is real, accessible and
    Mauro> inexpensive (a PDA, a memory and a couple of wiring).

How inexpensive?  A Zaurus SL-C7xx or SL-C8xx is going to be in the
neighborhood of 5-man-en real soon now, and you can probably picked up
used ones for cheap/donation.  There are some interesting pen-based
input methods (sort of like Palm's graffiti, but more abstract and
faster for stuff like Japanese); combined with point-to-select in a
predicting parser, you could probably get speed way up for a practiced
user.

The prediction stuff wouldn't have to be all that complex, either, for
example, enter V-O-T and if you're in verb position you get selection
of completions to "vote", "voted", "voting", if noun, "vote", "voter".


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