tmoody@sjuvax.UUCP (T. Moody) (01/23/86)
Just a few comments about W. John Weilgart's "aUI, the language of
space", about which I posted an article recently...
First, as far as I can tell, Weilgart's original purpose in developing
aUI was clinical; he used it as a psychotherapeutic tool. His idea
was that there would be therapeutic value in having patients try to
express their problems in this rather primeval unadorned language. In
fact, his first publication about aUI was "aUI, a psychosymbolic
language of semantic therapy", in International Language Review, April
1958.
Later, Weilgart began to consider seriously the viability of aUI as an
international language.
I do not know whether any kind of large-scale experiments with aUI
were ever conducted. That is, I don't know if it has ever been tested
as an actual realtime communication medium between people who share no
other language (Esperanto, of course, is "field tested"). What is
interesting (to me) about aUI is that it apparently represents a
serious attempt to *collapse* Chomsky's two levels of sructure into
one. Frankly, I am altogether skeptical about this sort of project,
but I find it intriguing nevertheless.
If Weilgart is correct, anyone who has my original aUI article should
be able to translate the aUI piece which Thomas posted recently, with
no further instruction in grammar. Perhaps net.nlang is the first
large-scale test of his hypothesis of a universal natural grammar of
concepts.
IQ buffs will be interested to know that Weilgart spoke 27 languages
and had a measured IQ of over 200.
Todd Moody | {allegra|astrovax|bpa|burdvax}!sjuvax!tmoody
Philosophy Department |
St. Joseph's U. | "I couldn't fail to
Philadelphia, PA 19131 | disagree with you less."