Re: [ontolog-forum] A Language Taxonomy

["Obrst, Leo J." <lobrst@xxxxxxxxx>]

John,

 

You should look at the Ontology Spectrum for a correlate to your diagram, i.e., a range of semantic models, 2 sessions I presented to Ontolog in Jan, 2006 addressing  “What is an Ontology”: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ConferenceCall_2006_01_12. These are not languages per se, but models rooted in languages, and address expressivity.

 

Computer languages are of course languages. They are rooted in formal languages, often juxtaposed to natural languages (English, Chinese, etc.), but sharing many properties. See Formal Language: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_language.

 

You might also look at the Chomsky hierarchy of languages (part of formal language theory): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chomsky_hierarchy. Mathematical linguistics is largely focused on the formal underpinnings of natural language.

 

Thanks,

Leo

 

From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John Bottoms
Sent: Friday, January 03, 2014 1:15 PM
To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [ontolog-forum] A Language Taxonomy

 

Happy New Year to all,

I have been trying to find a taxonomy of languages. This arose from a discussion on reddit in which a linguist argues that "computer languages" are not languages, but are rather encodings. The discussion continues by observing that languages are spoken, are not created and that "there is no such thing as a logic based language". He/she also opposes my view that computer languages are used for speech acts.

I continued my investigation and found that Ogden's Basic English is considered an IAL (International Auxiliary Language), a language designed to facilitate communication between countries or language groups. I was unsuccessful in finding a taxonomy of languages that includes IAL's or a formal definition of what constitutes a language.

What I did find is an interesting drawing from the thesis of PHILIP LEE FISHER-OGDEN, B.S. (University of California, San Diego) 2008. The thesis draws on the W3C corpus of descriptions and bio's of experts within W3C such that that content can be access via a DBLP (Digital Bibliography and Library Project) search engine.

                                                ""Figure 1. Taxonomy Concept Map (from [11])

Two queries
-----------------
1. Do you know of a taxonomy of language types?
2. What are your thoughts on the concept map?

John Bottoms
FirstStar Systems
Concord, MA USA

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