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Facilitating Communication Between Languages and Cultures: A Computerized Interface and Knowledge Base

Annual Call for Projects 2003

Summary

The United Nations University, the Information Systems Interfaces Research Group, the Universal Networking Digital Language (UNDL) Foundation and the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) have combined their efforts on a project aimed at facilitating multilingual and multicultural communication on the Internet. The UNL (Universal Networking Language) is an artificial, formal and non-ambiguous language; it is independent of natural languages. The role of the UNL is to act as an intermediary. Unlike computer translation systems, the UNL system will not translate a text directly from a source language to a target language. With the UNL system, texts will be written directly in UNL, with the help of appropriate software tools. The UNL text can then be transformed automatically into a target natural language. The central part of the UNL system is its knowledge base, which defines "universal words." This knowledge base is developed by people with various linguistic and cultural backgrounds, located all around the world. The project aims at developing tools to facilitate the construction of this base. It includes three distinct yet closely interrelated parts: 1) design and prototyping of an appropriate storage infrastructure for the knowledge base; 2) design and prototyping of various user interfaces to support different types of tasks and users; and 3) establishment of a methodology for the collaborative construction of the knowledge base.

The grant provided by the GIAN for this project totals SFr 240,000

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Project Team

Dr. Rodolpho Pinto Da Luz , Principal Member, Universal Networking Digital Language Foundation (UNDL) .

Prof. Tarcisio Della Senta , Principal Member, Universal Networking Digital Language Foundation (UNDL) .

Ms Claire-Lise Mottaz Jiang , Principal Member, Information Systems Department , University of Geneva (Unige) .

Ms Gabriela Tissiani , Principal Member, Information Systems Department , University of Geneva (Unige) .

Related Links

> UNL Resources , UNL Resources.

> Résumé du projet , Résumé du projet.

Research Output

Facilitating Communication Between Languages and Cultures: A Computerized Interface and Knowledge Base
(available in English only)
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Documents presented at the World Summit on the Information Society
(available in English only)
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