Ben System for Italian, Spanish and other Romance languages

StolciusVonStolcenbe · January 6, 2013, 7:28pm

Hi,
I’m almost surely reinventing the wheel, but I’ve come up with a weird idea that
I will explain next.

There is a demanding problem in adapting Ben System to Romance Languages like spanish and Italian one.

For instance, in Italian there is no striking phonemic distinction between long and short vowels.

As a matter of fact there are only 5 Italian vowel sounds suitable for mnemonic use compared to the 10

contemplated by Ben system.

The question seems to be quite hopeless.

So what should we do?

Here you are my working hypothesis to face this issue.

FIRST/SECOND | VOWEL
CONSONANT |
(digit # 1;3) | (digit # 2)

e.g.

811=FATA (fairy) / 851=FATO (destiny)

What do you think about it?

According to me it works fine.

I’ve already implemented a VBA function that converts the numbers according to this idea.

You could paste it in a excel Module in order to use it as a formula.

Public Function LatinEncode(number As Integer) As String

Dim intDigitPosition As Integer
Dim strTemp As String
Dim strNumber As String
Dim ConversionTable(10, 1 To 3) As String
Dim Vowels(10) As String
Dim strSuffix As String
Dim intDigit As Integer

Vowels(0) = "o"
Vowels(1) = "a"
Vowels(2) = "e"
Vowels(3) = "i"
Vowels(4) = "u"
Vowels(5) = "a"
Vowels(6) = "e"
Vowels(7) = "i"
Vowels(8) = "o"
Vowels(9) = "u"

ConversionTable(0, 1) = "S": ConversionTable(0, 2) = Vowels(0): ConversionTable(0, 3) = "s"
ConversionTable(1, 1) = "T": ConversionTable(1, 2) = Vowels(1): ConversionTable(1, 3) = "t"
ConversionTable(2, 1) = "N": ConversionTable(2, 2) = Vowels(2): ConversionTable(2, 3) = "n"
ConversionTable(3, 1) = "M": ConversionTable(3, 2) = Vowels(3): ConversionTable(3, 3) = "m"
ConversionTable(4, 1) = "R": ConversionTable(4, 2) = Vowels(4): ConversionTable(4, 3) = "r"
ConversionTable(5, 1) = "L": ConversionTable(5, 2) = Vowels(5): ConversionTable(5, 3) = "l"
ConversionTable(6, 1) = "G": ConversionTable(6, 2) = Vowels(6): ConversionTable(6, 3) = "g"
ConversionTable(7, 1) = "C": ConversionTable(7, 2) = Vowels(7): ConversionTable(7, 3) = "c"
ConversionTable(8, 1) = "F": ConversionTable(8, 2) = Vowels(8): ConversionTable(8, 3) = "f"
ConversionTable(9, 1) = "P": ConversionTable(9, 2) = Vowels(9): ConversionTable(9, 3) = "p"

strNumber = Format(number, "000")

strTemp = vbNullString

For intDigitPosition = 1 To 3
  
    intDigit = CInt(Mid(strNumber, intDigitPosition, 1))
    strTemp = strTemp & ConversionTable(intDigit, intDigitPosition)
    
    If intDigitPosition = 2 Then
        If intDigit < 5 Then
           strSuffix = "a"
        Else
           strSuffix = "o"
        End If
    End If
Next
LatinEncode = strTemp & strSuffix

End Function

Thanks,
Stolcius AKA Michele Collatina

Josh · January 7, 2013, 4:44am

That sounds like an interesting idea…

When I was working on my Ben System images, I was using words from many different languages. I used to sit in the bookstore with a pile of foreign language dictionaries…

I’ve been redoing my images from scratch using categories. I haven’t tested memorizing anything with it yet though…

StolciusVonStolcenbe · January 18, 2013, 7:36pm

That sounds like an interesting idea…

tnx, Josh.

Imho, with some practice this method could result in a very fast encoding/decoding.

The key rule - in pseudocode - is:

IF central_digit < 5 THEN
    '*** First set of wowels
   O=0;A=1;E=2;I=3;U=4
   words suffix = ‘a’
ELSE
    ’ Second set of wowels ***
    A=5;E=6;I=7;O=8;U=9
   words suffix = ‘o’
ENDIF

Apart from that, it’s very effective for neo-latin language like Spanish and italian one,
because you can kill two birds with one stone.

How?

Generally, in this languages, nouns ending in ‘o’ are masculine and
nouns ending in ‘a’ are feminine

For example, in spanish the number 994 coud be encoded in “Burro”
(central_digit= 9; second set; wovel=‘U’;9>=5; suffix=‘O’).

“Burro” could stand for “ignorant person”[male].

The number 944 (central_digit= 4; first set; wovel=‘U’;9 >=5; suffix=‘a’) could be
converted in “Burra”(“ignorant person”[female]).

Imho this “masculine/feminine” non-phonemic approach could be very efficient
both for building your millennium set and also for a quick performance in both
encoding and decoding.

thanks,
Stolcius, AKA Michele Collatina

P.S.
I apologize for my rough English