Ideographic Language Research Articles

An ideographic language front end processor for accessing English language computer systems

A scheme is described which enables users to interact with a timesharing computer in an ideographic language such as Chinese. The host computer runs a completely unmodified English-based operating system, the necessary translation being performed by a preprocessing microcomputer which constitutes the ideographic terminal. The two systems communicate through a serial line, and the host sees the preprocessor as an ordinary (English) terminal. After brief consideration of the terminal's keyboard and display, we examine the software problems of translation for five examples subsystems – an interpreted programming language, text editor, document preparation software, interactive data base management system, and the command level of the operating system itself.

The world turned upside down: Information technology and the linguistic constraint

A comparison between the beginnings of the Industrial revolution and the beginnings of what might be called the ‘information technology era’ leads to the formation of the hypothesis that the significant benefits of this new era are being inhibited by a fundamental constraint. The author argues that this constraint is linguistic. He suggests that it may be removed by the creation of an information marketplace, the development of an ideographic language, or the creation of ‘learning webs’, and concludes by considering the consequences of ignoring the constraint.