The Babel meta-language

Published
2015-01-01
Last modified
2015-01-01

Inspired by the passion of the creators behind the EXA_PICO universe, I tried experimenting with a small constructed language (conlang) myself. The result is Babel, a compact meta-language.

Babel possesses a Lisp-like grammar, but otherwise strictly deals in semantic values and semantic forms. Also, Babel does not contain any meaning itself, but relies on binding semantic forms from other languages. Thus, it is a meta-language in the truest sense of the word.

First, Babel presents a way to import other languages as a language object:

(import english)
(import japanese)
(import hymmnos)

(I'll be borrowing some Hymmnos to demonstrate some interesting constructions later using Babel.)

(Presumably, were one to "implement" Babel, these languages can be implemented as separate packages.)

These language objects are used to bind semantic values, semantic forms, and semantic classes, which comprise the essence of Babel.

A semantic value is any individual unit of meaning. Grammatically, semantic values generally correspond to words or complete phrases. The main contrast is with semantic forms which we'll see next.

(val english "apple")
(val japanese "弁当")

Every time we want to use the semantic value for the English word "apple", we have to use `(val english "apple")`, which will get tedious fast as we move on to semantic forms and compositions of multiple values and forms, so we can bind objects to symbols in a straightforward manner:

(def apple (val english "apple"))
(def bentou (val japanese "弁当"))

Next are semantic forms, which define compositions of semantic values. If semantic values are objects, then semantic forms are functions; values are to nouns as forms are to verbs, although keep in mind that verbs can be bound as either values or forms.

(def subject (class english "subject"))
(def predicate (class english "predicate"))
; (sentence x y) -> x y .
; e.g. (sentence (I) (eat apple)) -> I eat apple.
(def sentence
  (form english ((subject x) (predicate y))
    x y (val english ".")))

Here we also see classes being used to help define a semantic form. We can then apply that form to values that belong to the given classes to complete the form, in this case, a sentence, like so:

(def me (val english "I"))
(def object (class english "object"))
(def eat
  ((object x))
  (val english "eat") x)
(sentence me (eat apple))  ; I eat (a/the) apple.

Here we use "eat" by binding it as a semantic form, but we can use it as a value as well:

(def eat (val english "eat"))
(def verb1 (class english "verb1"))  ; verb taking one direct object
(def do-verb1
  ((verb1 x)
   (object y))
  x y)
(sentence me (do-verb1 eat apple))

That's all you need from Babel to say anything in any language you want. But as you can see, it is quite tedious. We can take advantage of the Lisp grammar to add macros to Babel to abstract away all of the boilerplate from defining lots of classes, values, and forms, but the question one may ask is, why go through all this trouble in the first place? The answer is, using Babel allows you to freely mix semantic forms and semantic values from any language you want.

For example, Hymmnos has the interesting semantic form of preceding each sentence with three emotion words to describe the emotion behind the sentence:

Was yea ra chs hymmnos mea.

where the meanings of the individual words are:

Was
very much
yea
happiness
ra
I want this to last
chs
change
hymmnos
song
mea
me

Hence, the meanings of the emotion preface and the declarative part of the sentence are:

Was yea ra
I am feeling very happy and I want this happiness to last for a long time.
chs hymmnos mea
(I) change myself into a song.

which we can translate literally into ugly English:

I am feeling very happy that I now change myself into a song, and I want this feeling to last for a long time.

or more fluently, but losing some of the original meaning:

I am happy to change myself into a song.

Using Babel, we can use this semantic form in English:

(def level1 (class hymmnos "emotion level 1"))
(def level2 (class hymmnos "emotion level 2"))
(def level3 (class hymmnos "emotion level 3"))
(def predicate (class hymmnos "predicate"))
(def hymmnos-emote
  (form hymmnos
    ((level1 a)
     (level2 b)
     (level3 c)
     (predicate p))
    a b c p))
(def was (val hymmnos "was"))  ; very much
(def ki (val hymmnos "ki"))  ; concentration
(def ga (val hymmnos "ga"))  ; I want this to end soon
(hymmnos-emote was ki ga (sentence me (eat bentou)))

We might render this directly as

Was ki ga I eat 弁当

meaning

I am concentrating very much as I eat the (Japanese) bentou, and I want this feeling to end soon.

This is a semantic idea that simply cannot be expressed very cleanly, or very well at all in English, but by binding it through Babel, we can not only use this Hymmnos semantic form with English, but also use the Japanese semantic value 弁当 with English. In this case, we might have used "bento" or "bentou" as an English loan-word, but there are other conceptual values that are harder to bring to English, such as 青, which means blue, green, black, or pale.

Ultimately Babel is a toy language, as most conlangs tend to be, but it is an interesting study of semantics as well, and possibly a key first step in bringing about strong AI (also known as general AI, or real AI, as opposed to the fake AI of the oft-touted dumb algorithms of machine learning and neural networks).