Wiki90: 90s Style Encyclopedia on the Web
Today, Controlled natural language is a topic that generates great interest and debate in society. Since its emergence, it has caused an impact in various areas of daily life, from politics to entertainment. The evolution of Controlled natural language has been the subject of study and analysis by experts in different fields, who seek to understand its implications and consequences. In this article, we will thoroughly explore the importance and relevance of Controlled natural language today, as well as its influence on popular culture and global decision-making.
Controlled natural languages (CNLs) are subsets of natural languages that are obtained by restricting the grammar and vocabulary in order to reduce or eliminate ambiguity and complexity. Traditionally, controlled languages fall into two major types: those that improve readability for human readers (e.g. non-native speakers), and those that enable reliable automatic semantic analysis of the language.
The first type of languages (often called "simplified" or "technical" languages), for example ASD Simplified Technical English, Caterpillar Technical English, IBM's Easy English, are used in the industry to increase the quality of technical documentation, and possibly simplify the semi-automatic translation of the documentation. These languages restrict the writer by general rules such as "Keep sentences short", "Avoid the use of pronouns", "Only use dictionary-approved words", and "Use only the active voice".
The second type of languages have a formal syntax and formal semantics, and can be mapped to an existing formal language, such as first-order logic. Thus, those languages can be used as knowledge representation languages, and writing of those languages is supported by fully automatic consistency and redundancy checks, query answering, etc.
Existing controlled natural languages include:
IETF has reserved simple
as a BCP 47 variant subtag for simplified versions of languages.
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