Friday, January 22, 2010

Mt. St. Helena Fawn Lily: Languages - 'real' and human-made at World Univ & Sch, Proposal, WUaS Language Focus & Possibilities

Let's add all 'real' languages - and make it possible to add human-made ones {e.g. Na'vi in the film "Avatar," Ursula LeGuin's "Kesh" language in "Always Coming Home," Klingon, Vulcan and other languages in Star Trek, as well as Tolkien's languages: Quenya, Sindarin and Elvenlatin, etc.} to World University & School's 'Languages' ~ worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Languages.


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Here's a recent World University & School proposal:


World University and School is a global, digital, open, free-to-students, potentially degree-granting wiki university and school, potentially in all languages, nation-states, subjects and at all levels, using a Wikipedia-with-MIT Open Course Ware model, for everyone, especially OLPC countries and the emerging world, which anyone can edit, primarily by teaching, adding, or learning. Our target users are teachers and learners world-wide, widely construed. The 'Wow' factor: This far-reaching vision for open World University enables people on-the-ground around the world to teach, shape the wiki, and learn, potentially in all languages and countries. Teaching and learning content, and courses, are almost entirely open. The main pages will include wiki 'Courses,' 'Subjects, 'Languages' (all), 'Library resources,' 'Nation-states,' 'You at World University,' free 'Educational Software,' 'Hardware resources,' and 'Research,' as well as a foundation. Academically, WUaS focuses on great universities' open, free teaching and learning content: worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Courses#University_course_listings. While WUaS doesn't yet offer degrees, it currently links a free-for-25-students' Harvard University Ph.D. in Education for 2011
and 2012. WUaS plans to offer Ph.D.s, M.D.s and Bachelor degrees, etc. with matriculating classes beginning in 2014. Teaching/learning occur through video (e.g. posting to free, video-hosting sites, and in interactive virtual worlds like Second Life and Open Cobalt), and in ways to be created. By developing a wiki school in every language and nation state/territory, WUaS will facilitate a wiki conversation
between languages and countries, in terms of teaching/learning, free and open software, and also vis-a-vis free degrees. It will generate a language database to facilitate translation technologies in all possible language combinations, which will become a rich resource for brain and language research on end-users, using, for example, neural 'hats.' WUaS makes possible, in creative ways, the production, and linkage, of potentially all open source teaching/learning content, in all languages in an infinitely extensible way.


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To focus WUaS research, I think we'll add all (7000-ish - The Ethnologue contains statistics for 7,358 languages in the 16th edition, released in 2009 - See Lewis, M. Paul (ed.), 2009. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Sixteenth edition. Dallas, Tex.: SIL International, - and also William Bright [1986]) languages - and wiki (editable web pages) - to leave room for human-made languages (e.g. Na'vi in the film "Avatar," LeGuin's "Always Coming Home"'s language, Klingon and other languages in Star Trek, Elvish and other Tolkien languages). Then focus on Google Translator, 'amplified' by Google Wave, so that this language database, becomes a research resource. (There are probably other language databases). Then with technologies like Brainfingers - http://brainfingers.com - in reverse, and neural 'hats,' used, for example, in measuring brain activity in Buddhist meditators, we may be able to facilitate an all-language database (a universal translator) for brain/language research, in end-user's homes, even. I'll add this new 'Research' main page in the not-too-distant future.



I'd like WUaS to help facilitate bringing together Google Translate (http://translate.google.com/#), the United Nations, The Ethnologue (http://www.ethnologue.com), and Google Wave vis-a-vis World University & School's Languages - worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Languages. What a lot of data!










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Mt. St. Helena Fawn Lily

namethatplant.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/watermark_1902.jpg


Erythronium helenae







(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/01/mt-st-helena-fawn-lily-languages-real.html - January 22, 2010)



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