Intersem: 470 years of experience for the Intersem

Marie-France Berny mfberny at gmail.com
Sun Aug 23 21:29:59 CEST 2009


http://wikidna.org/index.php?title=Intersem:_470_years_of_experimentation
I have copied an IUCG document some may find of interest as it puts IDNA in
the middle of some perspective.
Best.
Marie-France Berny

*French: 470 years of experience for the Intersem*It was 470 years ago today
that King *Francois the First* signed the ordnance of Villers-Cotterets.
This ordnance removed the French judiciary system from any Church
jurisdiction and ended the use of Latin in legal public decisions. This was
the birth of the French modern language, through its assignment as *the
language of French law* in a lingually diversified Kingdom.

*The difference *This is the basic difference between French and every other
language. In every language there is a common referent in the background
that is never stated, but is constantly present. In French, as a legal
language, this referent comes with an impressive "built-in" metalanguage in
some kind of intelligent (as in inter-legere, inter-linked) overlay that is
shaped by the influence of the *Law*, methodically structuring the
*grammar*as well as rules, usages, social agreements, common thinking,
knowledge,
culture and cultural values that every other human community usually builds
from a rough consensus.

*A progressive exploration *Various authors (Du Bellay, Descartes, and
Pascal actually tested whether it was possible to use the language of the
Law for poetry, science, philosophy, etc.). This also clearly explains the
raison d'etre of the *French Academy*, which is not actually to protect the
language, but rather to protect the citizens by protecting the clarity of
the law as described by a language, which must be kept equal, logical, and
reasonably exciting for everyone, from generation to generation. This is the
job of academicians who, for that reason, have been dubbed as "Immortals"
(719 to this date), because the Law has to be immortal, as the rules of
Justice are carved in the stone, and in this way are also carved in the
national language. Revolution gave to the Law the care of the language of
the Law, but Napoleon returned it to the expertise of the academicians and
made them stabilize and document it. This was more efficient, but less
democratic: *the first SSDO* [specialised standard documentation
organisation].

*Intrinsic equality *This protection of the people by the defense of the
languages of the Law of the people is the very basis of a "*people centric*"
society, such as the one found in the *unanimous declaration* at the World
Summit on the Information Society, which described the want for the Internet
to support such. This is the motivation for the france at large team that is
participating in the IETF linguistic WGs; *an equal for all linguistic
support of equal languages*.

*Technical contribution *Technically, the interest in this experiment
results from the fact that *it worked*. This meant that one can introduce an
active referent system as a part of the more passive grammatical system. If
one considers that the common referent of a relational space makes the
semantics of its language, and that its various contexts make its pragmatics
diversity, this would mean that Francois the First was able to port a large
and key pragmatic referent into the language semantic references (grammar,
syntax, and vocabulary).

We know his way rather well: the new references were well structured (Legal
system). We do not know if other approaches would have worked, since that
respective case was unique. However, we also know that this trains French
speakers in their "metaductive" form of thinking, by first understanding how
the world is and then "boringly" striving to make it "French" i.e. equal,
logical, and reasonably exciting for everyone.

One could, in some way (which Kant implied), oppose this with the Descartes'
Method 4th rule: limited human methodical considerations come second after a
global vision (this is precisely what we are trying to address via research
[such as "Complex" or "Intelligent" thinking and "epistemology" (in the
French school meaning)] towards a *networked consideration of reality*).

*An inspiration for innovation *This introduction of the legal language in
the language itself, with all its logical implications and constraints, is
very similar to the problem that we are facing, which is to make natural
languages and *mecalanguages* [natural language support by machines] (the
first issue being IDNA) converge. Metaductive thinking is what registries
and metadata networks permit (JTC1/WG2/SC32, ISO 11179): it is the most
probable support of mecalanguages.

However, it took French a few centuries; we do not have that kind of time -
but we do have French as an experimental basis for the job at hand: the *
Intersem*, the multilingual and semantic Internet.
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