Human language technology
Human Language Technology (HLT) is also called Language Technology or Natural Language Processing (NLP) and consists of computational linguistics (or CL) and speech technology as its core but includes also many application oriented aspects of them. Language technology is closely connected to computer science and general linguistics.
The Beginnings of Human Language Technology, Cost-effective Machine Translation
1. Human Language Technology (HLT) is the “Science” that “Taught Computers to Understand Human Languages”;
2. HLT was invented, in 1977 - 1978, in Utah, by Bruce Wydner and his Associates;
3. the “Original Invention,” which produced what was named, “Human Language Technology,” was, “Cost-effective Machine Translation,” the Computer Software that is widely used around the World today that is able to automatically and instantaneously do about 85% of the translation work that is done by Professional Translators, that software originally was known as the "Weidner Multi-lingual Word Processor";
4. the US Federal Copyright to that Invention, and to all uses of HLT, has always been owned, exclusively, by Bruce Wydner and his Associates;
5. the Documentation is available that shows that The Most Used and most famous Machine Translation Program in the World, that is available on the Internet as, "FreeTranslation.com," (The Enterprise Translation Server,) was produced from Bruce Wydner’s and his Associate’s Copyrighted Materials.
The invention of Human Language Technology in 1978, as first demonstrated in the Weidner Multi-lingual Word Processor, has found its way into Automatic Parsing, Communications, Word Processing, and Translation Software worldwide.
To process languages on a computer it is necessary to depart from the Greek perspective of Language Arts with its explanation of speech forms and instead use a system based on Language Science, or the Law of Language, an object oriented approach or looking for root words and usages, predictable and statistical in nature, based on principles independent of vocalization.
Even computing stalwarts like Systran have had to convert from Language Memory Methods to Natural Language Processing:
The type of processing (by batches) used by Systran is out of date and should be replaced by a more interactive processing method. This has been well understood by Systran’s current rival Weidner which in a very few years and despite the still rudimentary character of the translation in the majority of the language pairs offered has penetrated the market further than Systran. (Better Translation for Better Communication, Commissioned by the CEC, G. Van Slype, 1983, Pergamon Press, Paris, France, Page 141).
What Cost-effective means:
“In a 1980 evaluation Ian Pigott considered that the quality of the Weidner Spanish-English system” [which was the only “system” produced by our original Team] “was comparable to that of Systran French-English” … [which is important information in relation to “Cost-effectiveness,” since the computer that I did that Program on was a DEC PDP 11/34, which was a rather inexpensive mini-computer, while the competitor (Systran) program needed a very expensive, huge Main Frame Computer for it to be able to operate] “(Van Slype 1983). Nevertheless, post-editing time was a third of the time required for full human translation of the same text, and so there were considerable benefits.” (message to W. J. Hutchins, April 30, 2007, Bruce Wydner)
Human Language Technology, The Law of Language
There are specific universals that are common to all languages, whether or not the speakers thereof have ever had any determinable contact one with another.
Unlike Occidentals, Orientals conceive of the human mind as thinking in individual words, this tremendously simplifies things.
There are a very limited number of words in existence. A very small number, really, that are used with any frequency.
This is the approach that has allowed our group to attain the successes that have been reached with using the digital computer to automatically translate from one language into another.
The Orient's writing system is based upon the sense of sight: each character is for a different sight. Europe’s writing system is based upon the sense of sound: every letter of the alphabet was supposed to be for a different sound.
It is the approach to speech through the sense of sight, as used by the Orient, that gives us hope of universal understanding among different languages.
We choose to attempt to explain the universal Law, which shows how the mind of man reacts to that which is and which is active in all languages, by explaining the reactions of the mind of man with sounds for words, in the first place, and then with these patterns in the second place, as reactions of the human mind to SIGHT. (Introduction to the Law of Language, Bruce Wydner, 1977)
An example of how Human Language Technology works is demonstrated by showing how the people of China have been communicating for the past 3,000 years.
If you had lived in China and had been taught their writing system, based on the pictures of human thought, you would discover that regardless of what language your were taught to speak, Mandarin, Wu, Min, Cantonese or any of the other 96 languages spoken in China, that are as different from one another as English and Spanish are. You discover that like the other 1.3 billion people in China everyone reads the same newspaper the same books and magazines. The amazing fact is that the Chinese people, regardless of their spoken language, all write the same language.
It is not uncommon to be traveling through China and see this amazing language technology at work. Chinese can communicate across the barriers of Babel simply by writing their communications to their fellow Chinese.
Merchants simply write to each other when encountering Merchants from one of the other Chinese languages. Students studying at a national college simply need to read the textbook or notes written by the instructor with whom they are having a hard time listening to during a lecture. A couple who fall in love and get married can communicate with each other and with their new in-laws regardless of vocal language barriers.
In 1978, by showing computers how this writing system of China works, Bruce Wydner and his Company broke the language barrier that had been keeping computers from becoming human language communications tools.
The Weidner Multi-lingual Word Processor, as it became to be called, operates by striping (parsing) the Babel out of the words and phrases of phonetically written languages, then mapping these root words and phrases to an interlingual lexicon, the thoughts of mankind categorized by the sense of sight, or how we look at and see it, the laws of language that we all use regardless of vocalization.
Bruce Wydner the "Father of Cost-Effective Machine Translation" and inventor of the Weidner Multi-lingual Word Processor, explains further the basis of Human Language Technology:
For almost 35 years now the World Market has accepted our Invention of Human Language Technology as the “break-though” Invention that was responsible for processing human languages.
We are the Inventors of, what the US Government designated, “Human Language Technology.” That is the Computer Software Programming that, through this Human Language Technology, has allowed Computers to automatically and instantaneously perform about 85% of the functions of Human Thinking, as that is expressed in Human Languages, which has, in effect, been the World’s Computer Software Industry for most of the past nearly three decades.
Human Language Technology is, essentially, the Explanation of What All Humans Are Born Wanting and of how Human Language is a natural reaction in relation to that. (The Oriental Culture of China made use of this, somewhat, which resulted, over the past 3,000 years, in their having been able to effectively communicate over the some 10,000 Language Barriers that there are in China: from each one of the, about, 100 Mutually Unintelligible Spoken Languages of China into each one of the 100 others).
Human Language Technology shows that the Human Mind is born operating “inductively,” “from the Specific to the General.” That is the basis of the Science that was able to, at last, Teach Computers to Understand Human Languages. (by Bruce Wydner, Conclusion to "The Wired Americas," 2007 p. 14)
As reported by the Commission of the European Communities, after the ALPAC report in 1966 the invention of Human Language Technology in 1978 by Bruce Wydner was the foundation for their "New Hope" to break away from outdated and traditional attempts at Human Language Technology.
Wydner produced for Human Languages the world's first automatic parsing engine, the "Weidner Multi-lingual Word Processor," by programming material from the "New Learning Language Analysis Methodology for Spanish" onto a DEC PDP-11-34. This software automatically performs about 85% of the procedures performed by a human translator. All present commercially available machine translation programs are based on this methodology.
The Future Development of Human Language Technology
The original crew that produced the “85% Invention” was not interested in all of the Worldwide Developments of the World’s current “85%-effective Human Language Technology Internet,” and the “spinoffs” that developed from it, or anything else. It was understood among them how to produce the 100%-effective Human Language Technology that would let President David O. McKay’s Goal be reached by "Working Together," as he requested. That was all that we were interested in then. Since then the other members of our original crew are no longer with us, but that has been all my interest until now.
So, for the last few years primarily the US Government (DARPA), but the rest of the World Market along with it, has been saying that the cost of operating on that original Utah Invention of 85%-effective “Human Language Technology software systems is spiraling virtually out of control!” Look at our costs, spiraling up like it never has before, with us locked into this so expensive, incomplete, “unintelligent” Software! “We simply can’t go on this way?” “Isn’t there anybody in the world that knows how to help us?” (Quotes from 2005 DARPA Conference)
“The people of Utah know how to help. They have paid the price, by their actively translating from English into 104 Languages and back and by their sending out of hundreds of thousands of their young people, as Missionaries to learn so many of these Languages. They have paid the price to have developed the Professional Linguistic Insights and Skills that are needed to let the entire World advance up to using the Services of their 100%-effective Software.”
Now, as we show all ages of these people of Utah "Working Together," as President David O. McKay requested, how their Computer Software translates from another Language into English at the 100% of effectiveness level, all ages learn how to master it in just a few hours. Because all of these Linguists all “know this Training Course Materials by heart,” as soon as we show them how the Computer is taught to understand ALL of the procedures that the Human Mind performs, in translating their Missionary Training Course at the 100% of effectiveness level, they can explain to anybody else how it is done. THIS IS THE EXACT EXPLANATION OF THE ‘COGNITIVE COMPUTING’ THAT ALL OF THE US GOVERNMENT ETC. IS SEARCHING FOR SO DESPERATELY AT THIS TIME.
Stanford Research Institute will never find this out by studying the artful forms of grammar. Human Language Technology does not operate on grammar, it operates on the language perspective found in the Orient and even better understood by the cultures that once existed on the American Continents.
We have the Completion of our 1978 Invention ready in the exact way that the Federal Government wants it. That is in the COMPLETE ‘COGNITIVE COMPUTING’ SERVICES that they are all ready to start making available to everybody with their Worldwide Interlingual Telecommunications Utility!” (Invitation, 2006, Bruce Wydner, pp. 6-7)
See also
External links
- LT-World Language Technology World where concepts and technologies are explained and lots of links to people, projects, products etc. are given.
- ACL The Association for Computational Linguistics is the most important organization in the field.
- ISCA International Speech Communication Association.
- The European Association for Machine Translation.
- http://www.bhashaindia.com/patrons/LanguageTech/Langtech.aspx