A Winter Poem

[William Overington]

Please find the poem in the attached PDF (Portable Document Format) document.

winter_poem.pdf

This may help in understanding the poem in English.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/localizable_sentences_the_novel_chapter_037.pdf

William

 

[William Overington]

How strange.

Forty-five views of the thread, including about three from me.

Yet only two looks at the PDF document that I uploaded, one of them being me when I tested it was working fine.

So with one exception, thank you to you whoever you are, people looking at the thread have not then looked at the PDF document.

I wonder why, given that they had chosen to look at the thread that they did not then look at the PDF document.

Perhaps it would have helped if I had mentioned that the poem is illustrated with images that I produced using the Pen Tool and the Node Tool.

William

 

[William Overington]

Well, yes, but the number of views of the A4 PDF document has increased to five.

Maybe someone will print it, frame it, mount it on a wall, then post a photograph.

I am hoping to get a print but I have no printer here, but there is an online virtual print house that I can use.

I set the artwork up as A4 plus 3mm bleed areas, so to get a print from the online virtual print house it will be best to export an A4 PDF document with bleed areas as the colours go to the edges.

The PDF document available in the first post of this thread is without bleed areas.

Does anyone know what is the effect of trying to print an A4 PDF document that has 3 mm bleed areas on a typical home or office basic printer please? For example, does it get scaled down so that the A4 plus bleed area sizes is scaled down to A4 width or A4 height, or does the computer interface to the printer detect the bleed area and simply disregard it, or what please?

Although I do not have a printer it would be good to know because I tend to produce versions with and without bleed areas if there is other than white at the edges. So I am wondering if that is necessary or whether I could just produce a version with a bleed area.

William

 

[William Overington]

I wrote the poem, and illustrated it, yesterday, influenced by the view from a window of my home.

William

 

 

[Alfred]

9 hours ago, William Overington said:

… people looking at the thread have not then looked at the PDF document.

I wonder why, given that they had chosen to look at the thread …

I imagine that many people will open the thread with the expectation that the poem will be visible on the web page, and that upon seeing the words

On 12/11/2022 at 3:09 PM, William Overington said:

This may help in understanding the poem in English.

they decide that understanding the poem would require time and effort that they’re unwilling to devote to the task.

 

[William Overington]

Thank you Alfred.

Yes, that would explain why most people open the thread then do not open the PDF document, especially before I mentioned that the PDF document included artwork produced using the Pen Tool and the Node Tool.

Yet a few people have opened the PDF document. Maybe some of them have understood the poem in English. Perhaps some have delighted in localizing the poem into another language, maybe French, maybe Polish, maybe German, maybe other languages. Perhaps some have regarded the way each symbol tunnels through the language barrier as ... choose an adjective .

If anyone is interested, there are documents about the research.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/localizable_sentences_research.htm

And two novels, one complete, one a work in progress, that feature the invention and the research.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/novel_plus.htm

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/locse_novel2.htm

All free to read, no registration required.

The symbols are not emoji, as each of these symbols has been assigned a precise meaning, whereas the culture of emoji has developed such that many emoji can each express a variety of meanings. Yet, like emoji, each symbol is not linked to any specific language.

So will the invention ever thrive in application or will it be like a piece of pure mathematics that never got applied, a structure beautiful within its own bubble, yet just inside that bubble.

William

 

[William Overington]

So, eleven views of the PDF document thus far, of which two are from me, so a net total of nine views from people other than me.

Thank you for viewing.

William

 

[William Overington]

I have this morning thought of a practical application for localizable sentences technology.

I was watching Sky News.

https://news.sky.com/watch-live

Just after 8 am there was live reporting from some railway stations.

Due to strikes and the weather there is travel disruption.

One reporter said about people having problems finding out what is happening, particularly if they are visiting from abroad and don't know English.

So I am thinking that if there were some standardized localizable sentences, such as the following, each with a symbol ans a code number, that could be helpful.

----

Please consider a train.

The destination of the train is as follows.

The scheduled departure time is as follows.

The new departure time is as follows.

The train is cancelled.

The train will leave from the following platform.

----

Even those six localizable sentences could be very helpful to someone who does not know the language of the country where they are travelling.

Even a credit card sized card showing the symbols and the meaning of each localized into the traveller's own language could be helpful. 

William

  

[Alfred]

9 hours ago, William Overington said:

One reporter said about people having problems finding out what is happening, particularly if they are visiting from abroad and don't know English.

So I am thinking that if there were some standardized localizable sentences, such as the following, each with a symbol ans a code number, that could be helpful.

----

Please consider a train.

The destination of the train is as follows.

The scheduled departure time is as follows.

The new departure time is as follows.

The train is cancelled.

The train will leave from the following platform.

----

Even those six localizable sentences could be very helpful to someone who does not know the language of the country where they are travelling.

How do you envision the sentence “Please consider a train.” being used?

 

[William Overington]

5 hours ago, Alfred said:

How do you envision the sentence “Please consider a train.” being used?

 

As a header sentence, including so that in a sequence of sentences one can list more than one train.

For examples

 

Please consider a train.

The destination of the train is as follows.

Salisbury

The scheduled departure time is as follows.

1215

The new departure time is as follows.

1832

The train will leave from the following platform.

5

Please consider a train.

The destination of the train is as follows.

Edinburgh

The scheduled departure time is as follows.

1314

The new departure time is as follows.

1707

The train will leave from the following platform.

7

Please consider a train.

The destination of the train is as follows.

Brussels

The scheduled departure time is as follows.

2016

The train is cancelled.

 

William

 

[William Overington]

13 hours ago, Alfred said:

How do you envision the sentence “Please consider a train.” being used?

 

Thinking about this further, if the train has a code number, in a similar way that aeroplane flights have a flight number, then this could be used after the

Please consider a train.

sentence.

I have also thought of two sentences to add to the set.

So now a list of eight sentences.

----

Please consider a train.

The destination of the train is as follows.

The scheduled departure time is as follows.

The train is running on time.

There is no information about the train.

The new departure time is as follows.

The train is cancelled.

The train will leave from the following platform.

----

William

 

[Alfred]

7 hours ago, William Overington said:

Thinking about this further, if the train has a code number, in a similar way that aeroplane flights have a flight number, then this could be used after the

Please consider a train.

sentence.

If the train has a code number, you can dispense with “Please consider a train.” and instead simply incorporate that number into the specific sentence; e.g.

Quote

The destination of train #007 is as follows.

 

[William Overington]

Thank you for the suggestion.

3 hours ago, Alfred said:

If the train has a code number, you can dispense with “Please consider a train.” and instead simply incorporate that number into the specific sentence; e.g.

 

Possibly.

I had deliberately avoided having a parameter in a sentence. This avoidance was because I got the idea it could introduce complications in automated localization. Yet if the parameter is just a number or a non-localizable text string, possibly.

I don't know if it ever came up in our discussions, but does Comet Circumflex mean anything to you?

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/c_c00000.htm

Yet my format for the sentence.dat file for the present localizable sentences system is very simple. If a parameter is used it might need to be listed as a parameter before the sentence, so pushed onto a stack, so that the sentence localization process can pop it off the stack and apply it. Thus adding complication due a deliberately simple automated localization format. 

William

 

[William Overington]

Referring back to the poem in the winter_poem.pdf PDF document that is available from the first post in this thread.

If the poem were displayed, a person who knew the meanings of each of the symbols localized into Esperanto could read the poem as follows.

 

Estas vintro.

Neĝas.

La koloro estas blanka.

 

Neĝas.

La koloro estas verda.

La koloro estas blanka.

 

Neĝas.

La koloro estas griza.

La koloro estas blanka.

 

Neĝas.

La koloro estas bruna.

La koloro estas flava.

La koloro estas oranĝa.

La koloro estas blanka.

 

Neĝas.

La koloro estas blanka.

 

William

 

[William Overington]

If the poem were displayed, a person who knew the meanings of each of the symbols localized into English could read the poem as follows.

 

 

It is winter.

It is snowing.

The colour is white.

 

It is snowing.

The colour is green.

The colour is white.

 

It is snowing.

The colour is grey.

The colour is white.

 

It is snowing.

The colour is brown.

The colour is yellow.

The colour is orange.

The colour is white.

 

It is snowing.

The colour is white.

 

William

[William Overington]

I am learning some Welsh using the free course at duolingo.com and so I decided to try using Google translate to translate from the English text of the poem to Welsh.

I have only been using the present tense thus far in the course, yet as the poem is all in the present tense, that seems not to be an issue.

Here is the result from Google Translate, followed by some notes from me. If anyone reading this post knows Welsh then comments would be welcome please.

 

Mae'n aeaf.

Mae'n bwrw eira.

Mae'r lliw yn wyn.

 

Mae'n bwrw eira.

Mae'r lliw yn wyrdd.

Mae'r lliw yn wyn.

 

Mae'n bwrw eira.

Mae'r lliw yn llwyd.

Mae'r lliw yn wyn.

 

Mae'n bwrw eira.

Mae'r lliw yn frown.

Mae'r lliw yn felyn.

Mae'r lliw yn oren.

Mae'r lliw yn wyn.

 

Mae'n bwrw eira.

Mae'r lliw yn wyn.

 

Three interesting thing about Welsh in the following sentence are the word order, the use of 'yn' and what I think is called weak soft mutation.

Mae'r lliw yn wyn.

The literal word for word translation to English seems to be

Is the colour (doing) white

except that in English that would be a question, but in Welsh it is a statement, as Welsh word order is not the same as English word order.

Unlike English, where a question can be made from a statement by changing the word order, in Welsh the word order is not changed, but the word is changed.

The Welsh for the 'the' is interesting as it can have one of three forms. If the previous word ends in a vowel then 'r is added to the previous word, else If the next word starts with a vowel then yr is used as a stand-alone word, else y is used as a stand-alone word.

The basic word for white is gwyn but the leading g is dropped by the mutation.

Yet dropping the first letter seems to only be if the first letter is a 'g', otherwise the mutation is by changing the first letter to a different letter. I think, but not certain, that it is called weak soft mutation because 'll' does not change to 'l' in weak soft mutation.

The basic words for the colours used in the poem are gwyn, gwyrdd, llwyd, brown, melyn, oren.

 

The sentence

Mae'n bwrw eira.

for

It is snowing.

is interesting.

It is interesting to compare English, French, Esperanto and Welsh as regards the "it".

English has 

It is snowing.

French has

Il neige.

Yet what exactly is "It".

Esperanto has a word for "It" that is used for things such as

It is a car.

and

It is a dog.

where the "It" is something specific, but translates

It is snowing.

as

Is snowing.

Yet whereas in English, French, and Esperanto, the falling of snow is represented as an action, the Welsh

Mae'n bwrw eira.

where the 'n is yn abbreviated to 'n because it follows a vowel,

appears to be literally

Is (doing) casting snow.

So the action is casting, I think of this as like someone casting seed upon a field.

 

I hope readers enjoy the poem in the various languages.

I find the contrast of Welsh, a natural language derived from the ancient language of Britain, with its complexities, and irregularities, with Esperanto a constructed language with its highly regular structure, fascinating.

William

 

[William Overington]

A thread on how various languages express that is snowing.

https://punster.me/serif/viewtopic.php?id=314

William

 

[William Overington]

Here is a link that has some information about the various mutations in Welsh.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zsv8wmn/revision/1

In learning some Welsh I find it interesting that I have learned something about soft mutation in relation to the localizing of this poem from the symbols into Welsh.

Indeed it is somewhat serendipitous that that the localization of that poem shows that both b and m mutate to f.

Please note how brown mutates to frown and melyn mutates to felyn. 

William

 

[Alfred]

23 minutes ago, William Overington said:

Here is a link that has some information about the various mutations in Welsh.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zsv8wmn/revision/1

In learning some Welsh I find it interesting that I have learned something about soft mutation in relation to the localizing of this poem from the symbols into Welsh.

Indeed it is somewhat serendipitous that that the localization of that poem shows that both b and m mutate to f.

Please note how brown mutates to frown and melyn mutates to felyn. 

William

This is off topic for these forums, and as such it would probably be better discussed in the thread to which you referred previously:

On 12/22/2022 at 2:47 PM, William Overington said:

A thread on how various languages express that is snowing.

https://punster.me/serif/viewtopic.php?id=314

William

(What the BBC Bitesize page refers to as ‘soft mutation’ seems to be largely a voiced/voiceless distinction.)

[William Overington]

48 minutes ago, Alfred said:

This is off topic for these forums, and as such it would probably be better discussed in the thread to which you referred previously

Why do you consider my post off-topic please? To me it seems to be a matter arising from my original post, albeit by a somewhat something route.

As it happens, I had got to thinking about it and wondering if I can try to write another poem such that the poem when ;localized into Welsh has one example of each soft mutation. Can it be done with specific colours or would other adjectives be needed? Would new symbols be needed? The resulting poem using localizable sentence symbols could be published in an artwork generated using Affinity Designer. Sort of like light being focused from a wider lens so as to give a better image.

I opine that too strict an on-topic/off-topic circumscribing can lose sparkling opportunities.

51 minutes ago, Alfred said:

(What the BBC Bitesize page refers to as ‘soft mutation’ seems to be largely a voiced/voiceless distinction.)

Can you clarify please?

Soft mutation is part of learning Welsh.

I am not a linguist so "a voiced/voiceless distinction" means nothing to me at present.

William

 

[Alfred]

4 minutes ago, William Overington said:

Why do you consider my post off-topic please? To me it seems to be a matter arising from my original post, albeit by a somewhat something route.

I have to say that “a somewhat something route” is a rather delightful phrase! All I meant is that although your original post has a PDF attachment that you presumably created by exporting from an Affinity app, the subsequent discussion about learning Welsh is unrelated to that app.

8 minutes ago, William Overington said:

Soft mutation is part of learning Welsh.

So I gather from the link that you provided.

9 minutes ago, William Overington said:

I am not a linguist so "a voiced/voiceless distinction" means nothing to me at present.

I don’t claim to be a linguist, either, but the term “voiced” refers to the use of the vocal cords. If you articulate a ‘c’ or ‘g’ your tongue meets the roof of your mouth in the same way, and the only reason the end result is different is that you vibrate your vocal cords to produce the ‘g’ sound: the ‘c’ doesn’t involve vibration of the vocal cords, so it’s termed “voiceless”. Similarly, ‘b’ is the voiced counterpart to the voiceless ‘p’, and ‘d’ is the voiced counterpart to the voiceless ‘t’.

[William Overington]

26 minutes ago, William Overington said:

As it happens, I had got to thinking about it and wondering if I can try to write another poem such that the poem when ;localized into Welsh has one example of each soft mutation. Can it be done with specific colours or would other adjectives be needed? Would new symbols be needed? The resulting poem using localizable sentence symbols could be published in an artwork generated using Affinity Designer. Sort of like light being focused from a wider lens so as to give a better image.

I have had a look at the BBC web page and thought about for how many of the soft mutations I could find a colour demonstrates the soft mutation.

Thus far I have

 

coch goch red

porffor borffor purple

t d ?

gwyn wyn white

brown frown brown

du ddu black

rh r ? I am unsure whether soft mutation occurs after yn, possibly not

melyn felyn yellow

llwyd ? grey I am unsure whether soft mutation occurs after yn, possibly not

 

So two colours to try to find

William

 

 

[William Overington]

I have found this rather nice video. It is gently paced and is in both Welsh and English. 2 minutes 56 seconds. 492 views as of the time of this post.

 

 

William

 

[William Overington]

I found this rather splendid article.

https://welshotter.co.uk/blogs/news/the-welsh-language-and-colours

So I can add

tywyll dywyll dark

 

So i need to design another glyph, or maybe two new glyphs, encoding the following.

The colour is dark.

The colour is light.

 

William