Universal Networking Language

The Universal Networking Language ( UNL ) means Universal Network Language. It is a formal, mathematical language. It is being developed as an international cooperation project by the Institute of Advanced Studies (IAS ) of the United Nations University (UNU ) in Tokyo, in collaboration with international partners. The aim of the development is the reduction of language barriers on the Internet. All languages ​​represented in the United Nations should participate.

Operation

One of the biggest advantages of UNL is that it does not have to be learned. The author gives the text in your own language, a text editor. The information content of the text is then transmitted over a Enconverter (analysis program ) automatically in a language-independent UNL syntax. This can then in any natural language for which there is a Deconverter (conversion program) that will be translated immediately.

Enconverter and Deconverter be installed as plug-ins of the Web browser, so that the translation is transparent to the user. UNL is also embeddable in XML.

The UNL syntax contains the following elements:

  • Universal words ( terms whose meanings exist in any natural language )
  • Attributes ( properties of universal words)
  • Relations ( relations between universal words, such as spatial and temporal relationships).

Areas of application

UNL is not suitable for grammatical subtleties and linguistic elegance, but only for the informational content contained in a text. Therefore UNL is mainly used there, where it comes to the transmission of information as well as to quickly record information, eg in product descriptions or operating and repair manuals. The applications can be classified as follows:

  • Transmission of information
  • Information retrieval, in particular text search in foreign languages
  • Electronic service and trade
  • Global communication ( email and chat)
Transparency (human–computer interaction)
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