Exactly. That was the point I was making, that iconic languages for 
most parts of speech are not very universal. But the images 
themselves are very memorable as compared to symbols, etc. This leads 
to the idea of teaching meanings for images that will then be 
remembered more easily than symbolic vocabulary (and will also be 
found much quicker when in the midst of competing info). Hence, their 
use in a GUI -- more limited than proponents realize, and more useful 
than skeptics understand.

Cheers,

Alan

-----

At 5:19 PM +0100 2/4/02, G.J.Tielemans at dinkel.utwente.nl wrote:
>I thought that Bliss was introduced as an alternative
>language system for people with a spastic problem.
>I think that I saw a program on a Britisch BBC-computer around 1985.
>
>One of my professors on the university was even longer ago involved
>in the famous research of Osgood:
>the cultural differences in the meaning of words.
>
>I think that I even can remember one Dutch word that could not be translated
>
>in American English: gezellig.
>
>Don't you expect to meet this time that kind of cultural context problems?
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Alan Kay [mailto:Alan.Kay at squeakland.org]
>Sent: Monday, February 04, 2002 4:52 AM
>To: squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org
>Subject: Re: Toch weer antwoord: RE: Antwoord: Squeak
>Internationalization (vo orheen: Re: AW: AW: -- Whats this 'AW:' mean?)
>
>
>Richard --
>
>To your (2) question: Yes, we looked into it quite deeply at PARC ca
>1975, and even had a visit from Mr Symbol Man via a friend of ours,
>Ted Kahn, who knew him. There are lots of interesting things about
>BlissSymbols but, as with most such systems, it was much much better
>with nouns than with any other part of speech. Through a variety of
>such investigations our interest in iconic symbols became centered in
>their memorability (cf Haber, etc.) rather than their ability to
>carry meaning to those who had never seen them before. This is still
>a point of confusion for many who dream of pictorial languages, or
>those who don't understand the point of icons at all.
>       BTW, a particularly semi-invented-semi-evolved human language is
>Ameslan, which has many interesting and worthy features. We (Steve
>Weyer and I) also put some effort into seeing whether a workable
>universal language for meaning and programming could be fashioned
>from some of the best Ameslan ideas.
>
>Cheers,
>
>Alan
>
>-------
>
>
>At 2:53 PM +1300 2/4/02, Richard A. O'Keefe wrote:
>>Concerning "translations"
>>
>>(1) The "Re:" -vs- "AW:" example is precisely one which should be
>>      handled by MUA display code.  Just because "re" is NOT an English
>>      word but a 'token' inherited from general European culture, it is
>>      entirely appropriate for mail user agents to put "Re:" in computer
>>      files but display "Concerning:" (which is how _I_ pronounce it)
>>      or whatever on the screen.  It's just like the way law cases are
>>      "Regina vs Seagoon", pronounced "Queen against Seagoon" (yes, I've
>>      heard that Americans say "versus" instead of "against", but that's
>>      really my point).
>>
>>(2) Just for grins, has anyone considered a Bliss Symbols syntax for
>>      Smalltalk?  "Mr Symbol Man" Bliss was, after all, trying to invent
>>      a language-neutral writing system, and now that we have the
>>      technology...
>
>
>--


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