Bruce Wydner -- Historian, Linguist, Professional Translator of 11 European Languages into English and Inventor of "Cost-Effective Machine Translation," "Human Language Technology." See: Weidner Communications Inc





In Provo, Utah 1977-1978 Wydner produced for Human Languages the world's first automatic parsing engine, the "Weidner Multi-lingual Word Processor," by programming material from the "New Learning Language Analysis Methodology for Spanish" onto a DEC PDP-11/34 Mini-computer. This software automatically performs about 85% of the procedures performed by a human translator. All present commercially available machine translation programs are based on this methodology.

Father of Cost-Effective Machine Translation

<blockquote>
“In a 1980 evaluation Ian Pigott considered that the quality of the Weidner Spanish-English system” [which was the only “system” produced by our original Team] “was comparable to that of Systran French-English” … [which is important information in relation to “Cost-effectiveness,” since the computer that I did that Program on was a DEC PDP 11/34, which was a rather inexpensive mini-computer, while the competitor (Systran) program needed a very expensive, huge Main Frame Computer for it to be able to operate] “(Van Slype 1983). Nevertheless, post-editing time was a third of the time required for full human translation of the same text, and so there were considerable benefits.” (message to W. J. Hutchins, April 30, 2007, Bruce Wydner)
</blockquote>

Before the Invention of Cost-effective Machine Translation Computers were only able to “compute” Arithmetic, they were unable to “process” Human Languages. As far as all other experts in the World were concerned, “Teaching Computers to understand” Human Languages had “always been unrealistic.” (Natural language computing: the commercial applications, by Tim Johnson, published by Ovum Ltd, 1985 page 3)

The Invention of Human Language Technology

<blockquote>
We are the Inventors of, what the US Government designated, “Human Language Technology.” That is the Computer Software Programming that, through this Human Language Technology, has allowed Computers to automatically and instantaneously perform about 85% of the functions of Human Thinking, as that is expressed in Human Languages, which has, in effect, been the World’s Computer Software Industry for most of the past nearly three decades.
</blockquote>

<blockquote>
Human Language Technology is, essentially, the Explanation of What All Humans Are Born Wanting and of how Human Language is a natural reaction in relation to that. (The Oriental Culture of China made use of this, somewhat, which resulted, over the past 3,000 years, in their having been able to effectively communicate over the some 10,000 Language Barriers that there are in China: from each one of the, about, 100 Mutually Unintelligible Spoken Languages of China into each one of the 100 others).
</blockquote>

<blockquote>
Human Language Technology shows that the Human Mind is born operating “inductively,” “from the Specific to the General.” That is the basis of the Science that was able to, at last, Teach Computers to Understand Human Languages.
(by Bruce Wydner, Conclusion to "The Wired Americas," 2007 p. 14)
</blockquote>

Bruce Wydner, son of Leo and Frances Weidner, was born December 22, 1935 in Portland Oregon.

Education: Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, 1953-1956, Russian, Spanish and Latin; Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, 1959-1961, English Literature; George Washington University, Washington D.C., 1963-1964, Modern History; Columbia University, New York, New York, 1964-1965, Modern History

Accomplishments: LDS Church Missionary, Finland, 1956-1959, Finnish and Swedish; 142nd Military Intelligence Linguist Co., Utah National Guard, 1960-1962 Recognized as Company's Outstanding Linguist; U.S. Army Military Intelligence School, Ft. Meade, Md., 1960-1961; U.S. Army Language School, Monterrey, California, 1960-1962, Hungarian.

Professionally translated material from Finnish, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Dutch, German, Russian, Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese into English for the CIA’s JPRS, U.S. Army Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, U.S. Navy etc.

Bruce Wydner's works include: "The Fastest Way to Learn Spanish is to See It" 1971, 1975 and his doctoral thesis, The Military History of Europe, that contains "The 1,000-page Course."

Bruce Wydner and his work have been reported upon at some length in international literature:

1. Practical Experience of Machine Translation, Veronica Lawson, 1982, North Holland Publishing Company, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

2. Better Translation for Better Communication, Commissioned by the CEC, G. Van Slype, 1983, Pergamon Press, Paris, France.

3. Machine Translation Today; The State of the Art, Margaret King, 1984, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, Scotland.

4. Natural Language Computing; The Commercial Applications. Tim Johnson, 1985, Ovum Limited, London, England.

5. Machine Translation; Past, Present, Future, W. J. Hutchins, 1986, Ellis Norwood Limited, Chichester, England.

See also

Weidner Communications

History of machine translation

Human Language Technology