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My YC idea: User-created-language
4 points by rokhayakebe on Oct 9, 2007 | hide | past | favorite | 23 comments
What if we could communicate beyond words? The idea is fairly simple. Creating a database of images for each word. For each word in the dictionary their will be images (that best describe it) uploaded by users. Now someone can write a a letter and most of the words, if not all, will be converted into images and sent to the recipient who can also decipher the message after attempting to read it. I want to create a real interaction in messages. One that goes beyond words. To make it smart, I will use the a YCnews voting style for each image.

BTW, I can use one more hacker




Some criticism:

What would be the point? Sure it might be technically interesting to code etc. but this just introduces inefficiency to communication.

There's a reason we evolved from cave paintings and hieroglyphics to written form.


It is truth that we have evolved, but if you want to take it in that sense. Imagine 5000 years from now, would you think it will be easier for human beings to read those images or English, Chinese? Imagine a lady in Romania, a kid in Senegal (West Africa) and a adult in Antartica. If they all received the same message in images or plain English ? Which one would they be more apt to understand assuming they never spoke or heard english? The point is not even that. I think we can make messages say more and be more interactive. That's just my thought and I like your constructive criticism


There are two ways to look at this. First as an embellishment to ordinary communication methods (which includes email). That would be a more entertainment-focused product, which may be interesting.

The other direction, which I hope is not what you are hinting at, is a universal mapping of words to pictures. From what I know, historically and theoretically, this is impossible. For one, universal language attemps have failed (esperanto being the largest ever and it's a dud). For two, not all word forms have concrete representations (try meta-concepts, the concept that represents, and even "meta-concepts" itself). For three, Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir-Whorf_hypothesis

Language is a statistical thing; every new utterance communicated adds more data to the pool. Hence, even while there are dictionaries, the very second a definition is written down, if somebody uses the word, the definition is no longer perfect. In conjunction, there will never be a "best match" picture for a word.

If this is really your idea, consider not doing voting on pictures, but rather making a gigantic, associative map of words across languages. That will have immense educational value.


I agree with you. Although I believe the real value of this dictionary and communication tool may be well beyond what all of us are thinking of right now.


That's an excellent question. Express it in a series of pictures and I'll answer it.


That's true. Look at advertisements, which use images to appeal to people who aren't fond of text. For example, beer companies use images of attractive, smiling people, beer, and women with enormous breasts to vividly explain that beer will make you feel good. If you're transmitting a similarly primitive message to your Senegalese pen pal, a series of images is the way to go. But if you want to know what it's like to talk about politics using just images, read up on Pakistan's recent election, and take a look at all the people waving placards with Musharraf's mug on them. That's what happens when you want to 'talk' about complex issues without using big (or any!) words.


I think advertisement is totally different. For example, when you have basketball player selling you a Gilette razor, it makes absolutely no sense to me, same as Tiger Woods selling me a buick. That's wack. I mean a graphical representation that actually has a meaning, like the simple ;) When you see a picture of someone who smiles no matter where you are, it means happiness.


;) looks like a sly smile to me. I interpret it as evilness instead. What are you going to do?

Sapir Whorf probably wasn't the right article to cite. There are studies which names escape me now. But long story short, there is no solid mapping between pictures and concepts. The textbook example is "what is a chair?"

What picture would you use? A four-leg? A stool (what is a stool, actually?)? A lazybone? A king's throne?

Read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prototype_Theory


Thank you for your input. If you see a chair you know it is a chair. It doesnt matter if it is a couch or a chair with 2 legs, the concept is that you understand that it means "something I can use to lay my buttox".What I am trying to do is not giving each word an exact image, but each image a unique meaning. Besides think of Africans uploading 1000 photos to describe the word Pain and Americans as well. Wouldn't that be good data to use and understand how we all understand pain itself?


Your final point is good. A graphic-to-lexicon mapping would be very useful for research and education, and I am not familiar with what is available in this area. If this is your plan, it might have very broad applications. However the mapping would be very loose because categories are never absolute (hence Sapir Whorf). Case in point: some cultures agree by shaking heads and disagree by nodding. There was a time in China where the red light meant "go" and green meant "stop." You may thus have pictures which mean exact opposites to two different people.

It's just a problem I'm pointing out, and that a YC-style voting is not going to realize the potential of the idea. But my case about the prototype is very solid though. Your definition of a chair is not "correct." Nobody's is. I happen to lay my buttox on a teapot, now it's also a chair. Not trying to cavil here, but think of how that would affect your program if you type "chair" and a teapot shows up.


I agree there are slight advantages to images, but there is still something lost in translation.

How would explain a concept such as searching? Or a hyperlink?

Granted those are some contrived examples, but whatever problems we have with text and losses in translation, we'll also have (perhaps to a lesser extent, perhaps to a greater extent) in picture messaging.

These are just my 2 cents.

5000 years from now, I hope we would have advanced enough to instantly translate (correctly) from one language to another. Or just speak one language.


I agree. There are must be some losses in translation, cos pictures are just approximations to the elements of thinking process. Pictures have some "cross-platform" features, but their expression power much lower than language's. Ex. consider that language 1 has expresson power x, pictures have expression power y (x > y). And language 2 has expression power z (x = z). Then we're trying to reduce x to y and then take it to z again.

Instead of this we must take x to w (w > x) and then reduce w to z. A human translator going exactly this way.


hah! no need with my neuro-transmitter 3000!


Wait. Wait. Wait. A glyph-based Esparanto isn't good for anyone. A poor person communicates in whatever language that poor person is located. Why would they ever need to communicate in English? Why does giving them images to look at empower them for anything?


I remember reading about a startup in Israel doing exactly what you are describing. Their product is positioned as an alternative language for faster/easier texting on cell phones.

(if I remember correctly)


Here: http://www.zlango.com


http://www.uncov.com/2007/9/27/zlango-s-picture-language


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character


There's a professor at Stanford, Robert Horn, who wrote a book called "Visual Language" which seems interesting.

You can view sample pages here:

http://www.macrovu.com/VLBkExmplPgsMenu.html


I think the CIA or KGB might have a job for you :)


You mean Flickr tags?


You might want to collaborate with some people who are building existing lexicographical infrastructures. Have a look at this TED talk: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/161 . You might also want to check out E. O. Wilson's Encyclopedia of Life at http://www.eol.org/ . (He's also got a TED talk where he won the TED prize for the year.) Both of these people are doing grand, sweeping thinking about ways to use the web to redefine the way we think and use language, pictures and taxonomy, all of which you'll need to think about as you're developing this idea. You might see if you can eventually get some phone time with them and see how they solved similar problems you may encounter, like a structure for crowdsourcing. I'd love to see how this idea develops! I'll be very interested to see how you illustrate abstractions. Good luck!


Cool!




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