|
August 1, 2000 World InterNetters Society BULLETIN WINS July 24, 2000 Announcement UpdateOn Building The On July 1, 1997 Hong Kong returned home to China. She is doing well. US-China trade will increase and will benefit both peoples via World Trade Organization (WTO), according to Leonard Woodcock, the former UAW President and the First US Ambassador to PRC. Before Hong Kong returned to China, Mark Andreesen, originator of Netscape, foresaw the need to make WWW truly a World Wide Web. We, InterNetters, need to solve the multilingual translation challenge, that is, to translate from English letters to Chinese characters, and vice versa; and then from any language to any language ‘on the fly’, with an easier system to use and more integrated for communications. Our Internet users will feel ‘free’ to travel with any Internet system, using Linux, PalmOS, Windows or others, worldwide on the Web. A New Era of peace and prosperity in the Far East will soon begin. In this new Era, how can any US company or individual speed up trade directly with China? And how do we communicate faster in the Chinese ideographic language? Today, one-fifth of the world's population is Chinese, who can't touch-type directly on the QWERTY alphabetic keyboard to e-mail in their own language! The remaining four-fifths of United Nations citizens, including Americans, can't read or key in Chinese characters, simplified or traditional, on the Internet. So far Chinese characters are by and large, inscrutable to American businessmen or students! This is no surprise, when one considers the following linguistic barriers. In theory, the huge language gulf between the square Chinese ideographic characters and the linear Roman phonetic letters appears insurmountable. The world's foremost linguists and sinologists, including Bernard Karlgren of Sweden and Zhao Yuanren (Zhaaohlh Yuannhh Reenjlj ÕÔ Ôª ÈÎ ) of China, predicted that Chinese characters could never be alphabetized without losing meaning and creating cultural discontinuities. In other words, it is not possible to render Chinese characters into a purely phonetic script. It’s too much like building a Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco to Shanghai over the Pacific Ocean. Then, can we really bridge this immense language gulf? Yes. But how? We need a different strategy. That is, build a new Internet-Chinese vehicle on the Web. For example, transform the graphic strokes of a square Chinese character [ľ ] into its linear Sinographic letters [HLJY]. By adding ‘Mu+u+hljy’ [Pinyin+1 toneletter+4 strokeletters], a square ideogram is transformed and abbreviated into a linear Mandarin word [Muuh], like an English word [Tree]. That summarizes exactly what the founder of PINXXIEE Corporation did: Tree Û Ä¾ Û HLJY Û Muuh And "Muuh" becomes the first model of a new Mandarin-Chinese vehicle, travelling efficiently, economically and effective like an English at high speed on the Internet . H. C. Tien, M.D., a Peking-born Michigan neuropsychiatrist discovered and developed a Tenstrokes Alphabet for working with American children handicapped by dyslexia in a child guidance clinic in Lansing, Michigan. This Alphabet consists of only 10 English phonic letters, linked to 10 Chinese graphic strokes, that can teach any American child or adult (who already knows the English Alphabet) within an hour how to decode and read any Chinese character for fun. No prior knowledge of Chinese is required. And the Tenstrokes Games are available on the Net for children age 3-10, to play with parents or grandparents. In brief, TiENSTROKES are learning games for the whole family. With the Tenstrokes Alphabet, Dr. Tien has created a new Internet-compatible Chinese script, like English, for US-China communications, international trade and global education on the Web. Dr. Tien discovered this historical and scientific link between the two major languages of the world, English letters and Chinese strokes, in the 1960's. After more than 25 years of research and development, he perfected the Tenstrokes Pinxxiee (pronounced pin-shay, meaning phonics+graphics) language theory and technology, related to the Egyptian Rosetta Stone, found along the River Nile of Egypt. The original stone helped Young of England and Champollion of France in the deciphering of the hieroglyphics of Egypt into Demotic and Greek. Similarly, Dr. Tien’s modern "Tenstrokes Rosetta Stone", now decodes the square ideographics of China into linear Internet-Chinese and English scripts. In fact, what he discovered turned out to be a global motion alphabet of all the world's languages. It can be used for multilingual translation on the fly. In a recent article, (Talking to Strangers, WIRED May 2000), Steve Silberman wrote that back in 1955 Warren Weaver, the father of Machine Translation, mused, "over the possibility that a system of prelinguistic symbols underlies all human languages, like a shared source code of thought. If such a system could be discovered, or created, Weaver speculated, it could be used as medium for converting ideas from one language into another. By translating the words in an original text into this code, and then translating back into the desired language, the code could be used as a universal interface between languages." Was he anticipating the discovery of Tenstrokes alphabet almost by 5 years? In 1961, while using Chinese characters instead of Rorschach inkblots to test American children with dyslexia and teach them how to read, Dr. Tien theorized that some of the children might be able to project and perceive English alphabetic letters in the Chinese ideograms. This discovery led Dr. Tien to search for the origin of the 26 Chinese alphabetic letters, specifically looking for their ideographic origins; and this resulted in the discovery of the Tenstrokes Global Alphabet in ancient texts, stretching over a period of 3,500 to 6,000 years ago, along the Yellow River of China. His discovery connects the ideographic mind with the phonetic mind in the right and left hemispheres of the brain. And, at the same time, Tien’s Alphabet bridges East and West. Dr. Tien is a graduate of the University of Michigan Medical School, and also holds a graduate degree in electrical engineering (system theory) from Michigan State University School of Electrical Engineering. As the son of a Chinese diplomatic family, his early education sprang across three continents, three languages and three cultures, in Beijing, China; Lisbon, Portugal; London, England; and Adrian College, USA. In 1973, Secretary Sun Xiu-zhang (Sun Xiujl Zhangvh = Ëï ÐÞ Õ ), on behalf of Chinese Language Reform Commission and their senior members, including Fu Yong-he (Fuujlh Yoonngv = Hhejhljv ¸µÓÀ ºÍ), and Zhou You-guang (Zhou Yyoou Guang= ÖÜ ÓÐ ¹â ), investment banker-turned-linguist, invited Dr. Tien to meet with them in Beijing to discuss this discovery. The senior linguists of China forecast Tien’s Pinxxiee System (Pinyin+Toneletter+Strokeletters) would be first used in electronic communications (such as today’s e-mail) in the far distant future. Their predicted year was 2001! Tien therefore named his system PX 2001. In 1995, Huang Zong-xuan (Huanng Zongvvp Xuanvjjv = »Æ ×Ú ìÓ ), senior educator emeritus, China Ministry of Education, on behalf of Beijing Municipal Educational Department, invited Dr. Tien to demonstrate and to teach their teachers and students in 6 chosen elementary and middle schools in China. His instruction program made use of the PX 2001 Computer-Chinese language program, which was used in the pilot project of 25 teachers and 125 students in Beijing school system with remarkable results. With only 15 hours of Pinxxiee instruction, some students could learn to touch-type up to 20-30 Chinese characters per minute, equivalent to 40-60 English words. The Beijing Pinxxiee Final Report was translated into English and released in June 1997. What exactly is the historical significance of Dr. Tien’s discovery and invention? Since 1873, the American invention of the typewriter by Sholes/Remington has stimulated countless attempts to adapt the Chinese ideographic script into a touch typeable format. With the advent of the computer, literally 1000 or more input methods have been developed over the past several decades. About 250 or so have been patented in China and elsewhere. Some use very large keyboards, some use elaborate numbering systems, some, 4-corner codes, others use hybrid combination of letters and numbers. Simple or ingenious, they are best described as display-and-select methods. The homonymic code "ma" shows multiple homophonic Chinese characters on the computer screen, and then the user must select one amongst several or sometime dozens of homophones. However, they all remained as input codes. Currently about 10 input methods are being used on the market. These input codes all boil down to two or three schemes: by sound, using Pinyin (QuanPin) or by form, using 5 stroke code (Wubi), or mixed. They are useable. But none of these attempts has worked well enough to become widespread or acceptable as a China standard by the Chinese government or by her general population or by the world's ideographic computer users. And none can truly compete with the English script on the QWERTY keyboard or on the Internet. Dr. Tien's Internet-Chinese approach is gradually coming to the forefront as the first definitive and comprehensive solution to touch-typing of Oriental ideographic scripts or any graphic symbols on the standard QWERTY typewriter or computer keyboard. The solution is the PINXXIEE (Pin-Shay) language script he created, based on his Tenstrokes discovery. This is a one-to-one relationship between a square ideographic Chinese character and a linear Internet-Chinese word, like so: mother ó Âè ó macjh In 1983, using his family’s savings, Dr. Tien followed his dream and realized his theory of building the first practical PX 2001 model to touch-type Chinese characters, like English, on a regular QWERTY keyboard, first using IBM System 34 and then downsizing to a PC. Upon hearing this success story in a scientific meeting, the Washington Post sent journalist, Joanna Biggar, to Lansing, to interview Dr. Tien and his wife, Audrey Roberts, formerly from North Wales, about their new R&D company: Chinese Computer Communications (CCC), Inc. in Michigan. On November 10, 1985, The Washington Post published a feature article announcing this invention to the world and predicted that the world’s most populous nation will truly enter the Computer Age, using the Pinxxiee system. On November 5, 1999, as if to fulfill a modern Post prophesy, China Standardization Association awarded the Certificate of Standardization on this history-making Internet-Chinese Tenstrokes Pinxxiee language technology. On this occasion, in a ceremony at Beijing Hotel, Ambassador Chai Zemin (Chhai Zzevvt Minn = ²ñ Ôó Ãñ ), an old friend and counterpart of Ambassador Woodcock, and serving as Honorary Chairman of PINXXIEE Corporation, spoke on the historical year of the 50th PRC Anniversary, and recited at length how he and his colleagues struggled and worked hard for Chinese language reform since the 1920's to the present day. Ambassador Chai has given moral encouragement to Dr. Tien’s R&D project for more than two decades, since he first learned of Dr. Tien’s Pinxxiee discovery in Washington, D.C., while serving as the first Ambassador of PRC to the USA. Today, as a private citizen, his conclusion is that this new Internet-Chinese Pinxxiee method provides the missing link to Chinese language reform and modernization. On May 26-31, 2000, under the leadership of Professor Lin Jianxiang (Linn Jiaanphh Xianngvlpv = ÁÖ ½¨ Ïé , Peking University, the GCCCE organized and presented an Internet-Chinese Pinxxiee 4-Unification workshop for teachers and successfully demonstrated TiENSTROKES tutorial software, (installed in HandSpring’s Visor, the new handheld computer donated by PalmPilot Inventor Jeff Hawkins) at the 4th Global Chinese Conference on Computers in Education held in Singapore. This Workshop/Tutorial has the potential of reaching 17 million teachers on the Internet within a few years in the People’s Republic. Dr. Tien has received copyrights and trademarks for his invention from 1962 to 2000; and patents on his award-winning technology both in China and in the United States, in 1992 and 1993, respectively. He was notified last month that he has been awarded a new patent on his Tenstrokes telephone keypad, integrated with the QWERTY keyboard for the new wireless age. The commercial opportunities for the PX 2001 translation system for multinational corporations, language translation companies and schools, are virtually unlimited. The Internet-Chinese language technology is now maturing for commercialization, and its leading product is Internet-Chinese MindMaster™ ÊÖ ÐÄ Í¨ ® ShouXinTong® software, ready for the palmcomputer or PDA market. According to Professor Lin Jianxiang, by applying ‘fuzzy logic’ and using educational technology like Internet-Chinese MindMaster™ program, the PDA will become a ready easy-to-learn and easy-to-use bilingual English//Chinese personal tool, always at hand, for the learning and teaching of English for the Chinese Mandarin-speaking people, and conversely, for the teaching and learning of Mandarin-Chinese for the English-speaking people. Recently, David Blunkett, Secretary of State for Education and Employment, Britain, and Mme Chen Zhili, China’s education minister signed a wide-ranging agreement in May 2000 that "swaps Mandarin for English in its bid to teach" 320 million students English in China and to expand the teaching and learning of Mandarin-Chinese seriously in Britain. If British schools are moving aggressively forward in learning and teaching Chinese, can American schools remain far behind? Furthermore, CCC’s Internet-Chinese Converter® software, a close companion program to its MindMaster™, will help accelerate this massive effort, part of custom-designed teaching and learning centers for businesses, education institutes or language schools. And in 2-4 years, their bilingual graduates will be making proposals to help build Multilingual Information Super-Highway (MISH). And CCC is seeking appropriate business partners for international marketing and commercial projects for global education and world trade on the Web. The TREE MODEL of Multilingual Information Super-Highway: Tree Û Ä¾ Û HLJY Û Muuh
Editorial Board PINXXIEE Corporation For more information, visit http://www.tienstrokes.com. Contact: CCC: 517 336-9500; FAX: (517) 336-1212; E-mail: No part of this article may be reproduced or transmitted, in
whole or in part, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval
system, unless with prior written permission from the Publisher, except for
brief excerpts for the purpose of reviews and/or news articles.
|
|
Copyright 1961-2009 World Journal of
Psychosynthesis, LLC. All Rights Reserved. |