History of EL (since 1988)

1988-96 . 1997 . 1998 . 1999 . 2000 . 2001 . 2002 . 2003 . 2004 . 2005 . 2006 . 2007 . 2008

The links to the EL news mails in the past are removed right now;
maybe selected articles among them will be back later.

# In January, being concerned insecurity of MS Office 2000 in the near future, Don donated his used laptop with XP for EL editing. On the way, all software got changed. The web editor, FrontPage has a completely different system from Netscape 6 that she had used so long. Setting Japanese and EL in the new English based condition, and figuring out how to use the tools, she had another difficult time. But luckily a new technical supporter, Mr. M. S. appeared through mailing from Nara, Japan. With his help, she is entirely rebuilding the EL website, fixing a lot of problems which the former tool created in each pages.

2007: aimed at making samples of a variety of applications using EL.

# EL Fonts Earth3 was renewed on September
With Jo Chen's help again, Earth3 was only changed on the mark, gf (to bond symbols as a concept),
making it smaller as hyphen. In the EL website, there are many complicate ideograms, but you can show their elements apart more easily now. EL became much kinder for beginners.

# Printable text sheets to learn EL
The following files were made and you can download from the DL site: 

• 160 traveler's Conversations in EL with English, Japanese, German and
  Esperanto translations (Jo Chen's cooperation); also partly Italian and
  Noxiro (a constructed language by Sentaro Mizuta). (Excel-file)
• Printable EL Dictionaries about body features and the concepts related to the human body
  About these matters, they have more contents than the main dictionary has.  (MS Word doc-file)

# Illustrated Dictionary in the EL website:
Most basic words in EL are expressed with a picture-like single symbol. To think about scholarly naming later, it took months to set these examples. You'd find how easy to memorize those basic symbols.

Preface note for naming things and Classification of living things:
Human Body Features, Primates, Mammals, Insects:

# Meditation exercises with EL Body-signs:
 This is a combination of the power of symbols and Chi-Gong theory. It would work to harmonize your body and mind by becoming a part of nature with whole body movements. Easy to learn, fun and effective, testers .enjoyed them in CA and WA.

The contents in this corner:
Introduction, The Ocean, Tree, The Sun and light, Rain,
Wind, Earth, Cloud, Happy and Gratitude

# Monthly Special Corner (since 1999)
Short Poem/Haiku in EL and its Pictographic Expression with its English and Japanese:
In 2007, I translated various types of haiku from various generations and regions.
I started this corner with almost no experience of haiku creation, but the readers encouraged me to make haiku by myself. Then I have been involved into haiku and haiga creations under the name of hoo since the end of 2006, spending some time for it, including 200 times Renku in Japanese, English and occasionally with EL pictographs through email with a Japanese 88 years old haikuist whom I've never met.

# Earth Language Inspiration-game:
Now this is a game in old fashion to get an inspiration using an EL chart and dice, picking symbols randomly. Only a few people have tried this. An image from a combination of random meanings sometimes gives us unexpected stimulus.
If we could have a computer program randomly to pick symbols to compound or to arrange, showing each  meaning of chosen symbols in a pop-up dialogue box, it would be useful to get an inspiration for anyone; also good tool to build up the EL dictionary worldwide together as Web 2.0 through the Internet.

2006

# Stephen Watson, a Canadian English teacher in China created a web program site to edit a colorful EL writing page, using each different color for bases in a compounded character to share it with anybody. (January) It would be beautiful to use for a poem page and etc., but unfortunately the program was not compatible with Yoshiko's old fashion editing tool; and can't be used for the EL site. He continuously helps since last year for new tools and introducing EL

# In February, The Mini Topics corner was updated with the news of Sacred Run and the starting ceremony in the Alcatraz island. People from over the world was going to run across the continent to WA D.C. with Native Americans to call world peace. Yoshiko enjoyed the starting ceremony, making some nice new friendship.

# Yoshiko learned a lot about Chi-Gong through a Japanese Chi-Gong master, T. Tsumura, and realized the possibility of EL as a useful tool to explore into one's own body and to heal it. For that purpose, the new plan started in the EL Japanese website. She feels EL multi-method symbols works so well with Chi-Gong idea for the healthy body and spirit. Tsumura approved it too, seeing some sample exercise. 

# The details of bases 04, 06 and 14 are slightly changed for more usefulness So Tomo helped to renew the EL Font TTF. (May 31)

# A teacher Hala in Australia started to use EL in her class, wanting to involving other classes over sea. Here is her proposal.

# A Japanese definitive language magazine "Gengo/Language" required Yoshiko to write about EL in their constructed-language-encyclopedia for this November version. So June and August, Yoshiko was busy for the preparation. Here, The General Introduction of the EL System was translated from the article with little addition (November opend).

# A German EL supporter Jo Chen (nickname) created a completely New EL Font, which can show compounded characters in an email with any computer (perhaps) by a simple system. Long discussions started for the details of the font and the ASCII, since his specialty was efficient learning, he had many opinions for EL too. Taking much of his idea, and tested the fonts in many ways, finally the EL Font, Earth 3 and the new EL ASCII 3 are uploaded on Oct. 24; and anybody can download and use them freely.

# Jo Chen also made EL lessons to adult students of his Esperanto class. Their voices must be precious for continuing to building the EL web site.

# Worked hard to fix the dictionary for the new symbol setting. There got a big problem by the software, Netscape composer 6. When touching a place to change,  it creates a lot of spaces between words entirely in that paragraph; so it takes much more time for cleaning unnecessary spaces than just renewing. Wishing to change the editing software, but the compatibility concerns.

# One of the World Haiku leaders, Mr. Natsuishi Ban-ya (Japan), whose haiku was used in the December version of the poem page, With crows, sent Yoshiko the newest version of their haiku magazine WHA; and it was good. Since then, she was involved in his haiku group using the haiku name hoo.

# Greeting cards using EL symbols were uploaded to share with others.

2005

# The Footnote page was updated with many information links that EL Cid in India had collected for the EL site: it's including various interesting communication methods including whistling, drumming, drama dancing and so on. EL Cid is also learning and checking the EL definition system to refine the EL text. Mat in Sweden continues giving hand to check the EL phonetics, saying how powerfully EL has been developed since the beginning of the EL web site.

# Mandala series were up only two times this year: Deadly Symbols relating to Native American culture (13) and plant and human comparing the ways of thinking between Aristotle and the EL (14). Yoshiko realized how sensitive cultural matters were, through the mails after cultural writings.

# A Japanese interview book, "The Place Where You Can be Yourself" which includes the article about Yoshiko and EL among other 80 interviews of Japanese people living in foreign countries, was published. (Kobunsha, first printed 15,000, March 24, '05)

# In spring, the idea of some bases shape alteration has come up through EL mailing. Then renewed the details of 09, 10, 11, 35 bases, for more easiness to distinguish them from others in particular c-cs, creating more chances to compound with others. Also EL grammar pages were revised.

# EL True Type Font was renewed by Tomo's help; free to download (June). Also all of the EL system pages has been revised.

# Yoshiko joined in the SIMNUKE ART SHOW in downtown, San Francisco: for the 60th anniversary of the A-bomb, telling the story of the Atomic Age.  (July 28-Aug.10, '05). Among dark scene photos and artworks relating to the A-bomb, Above them, Yoshiko flied many butterflies made of WW2 survived colorful silk kimono clothes, symbolizing metamorphoses in peace, each forming the EL butterfly symbol: . Another peace Butterflies show was in SF Japan town, encouraging people to use EL symbols for a creation.
The EL news mail took the news; also newly made the topics page has the photos and stories about it.

# In Summer, Topics Corner started to introduce small news with photos and EL, English and Japanese descriptions, taking up some reader's suggestion. In fall, topics were added for Sacred site/Shellmound Peace Walk, University of San Francisco is a hundred and fifty years old, The US Fleet Show, Chet Memorial Concert.

# On September, A half hour TV program to introduce Earth Language (EL) was broadcasted by KTSF (Ch.26) in San Francisco Bay-Area, in the frame of Japanese Journal: once a month and a 20 years-running program, although the language was Japanese.

# Translated the story of Babel from the Modern English Bible into EL Also being requested, submitted several Yoshiko's haiku in EL, English and Japanese to Lishanu - a new Interlingual Haikai Journal. I wonder what happened to the site that never update since then.

2004

# A mini lesson corner is added in the home-page, introducing a few EL symbols at a time, changing the contents frequently.

# Earlier [Proposal 1, 2, 3] were separately expressed, but the ideas are always working together anyway. So changed the whole EL web site into one proposal.

# In the Mandala series, Taught by Forest (10) - Communication To Share Feelings - Taught by Forest (11) - Calendar- and - Children of Mother Earth (12) - were added. Also, a special essay, "Good bye Dad" was on February about her relationship with the late her father-in-law beyond countries.

# In spring, Tomo finally made the EL overlay typing tool for MS Windows 2000/XP to share with others. After testing it, fixing some problems, Yoshiko made the English manual to use it..
Then made a compact EL text/dictionary, using the new typing tool. Because of the mixture of EL and English in many cells of large tables, it took much more time that expected.

# JINA (Japanese information site in LA) and a Constructed Language site (in Yokohama) interviewed Yoshiko and introduced EL in their sites. (June and July, both are in Japanese)

# In October and November, a German physicist makes speeches about EL as A Communication Way with Extraterrestrials in the following UFO-related to the Euro congresses:
DEGUFO (this is mostly in German; partly English)
MUFON-CE   (the Central European Section of the Mutual UFO Network)

#  Udo, a member of Belgian rock'n'roll band "Devoted Symbols" sent Yoshiko their new CD which cover design was with full size EL symbols.

# The Japanese version of the printable EL dictionary was edited (through October). Started editing the text for the printable version of the EL phonetics; and Mattias in Sweden helped it for the corrections. (November)

# The EL news-mails were only two times this year; the December version had a essay,  "Soft Power for Raising Compassion."

2003

# In January, EL's former Internet provider was closed, and the website had to be set up in the new system. But somehow the new one didn't work with her mailing tool. After struggling many ways, she started to use Outlook after all. She got a fire-wall, updating an anti-virus program, also she have saved her address-book separately from Outlook. It's a little inconvenient, but she didn't want to have any chances to deriver virus to the readers.

# All pages of the Dictionary were filled up with compounded character (c-c) examples, though still very roughly. More checking would be needed.

# New notation, #gf was made for the glue of bases: it shows a compounded-character without actually compounding bases on top of each other, putting it between bases. Many Europeans had recommended her to have it since very early time. Now total amount of bases, included numerals and bracket kinds of notation became 90.

# From May 11 through June 11, she was at the edge of her life with unknown high fever with various symptoms such as moving difficulty with head, back and neck pains, very little food went through. When she gave up her life, magically started to recover. She thanked all who encouraged her. EL news mail told about the detail. 

# The Mandala series 5-9 were wrote this year. May and June are about a little risky tendency (for the global world) of English shown by the traditional images of some basic words. The December version is about the way to feel peace and relaxed.

# In summer, The main Proposal 1 of Japanese version was revised. and in fall, the English version of that including [What is EL?], [Principle for constructing EL], and [Comparison of three world: the primitive society, the global society with common English and the world with EL] was written. When Yoshiko used both Japanese and English together, she realized how the thinking ways are different for the same thing between languages. English is powerful, and it concerns her about the direction where it leads the global society. These pages describe about it.

2002

# Experienced a strange irremovable computer virus (it could be frozen though), also getting invasion of a hacker: a weird site was linked in the EL link page. Sorry if you see it, it wasn't by her.

# Continuation of improving the EL dictionary.

# An accident
Her husband got seriously injured by accident in WA state in April, far from home. She with him, couldn't touch EL and her computer at all for 2.5 months. So she had to skip the monthly special series for May and June for the first time.
For building html pages with EL, she had memorized the all numbers of image file names of EL bases. But 2.5 months are enough to forget most of them, about how to work, where files are also. For coming back normal situation, it took time.

However the blank time was not just blank, she learned a lot by the unusual experience. As the result, she started Mandala series in the poem section (the preface: July). This series are for looking back our lives from the nature side, seeking the sustainable global world, using EL pictographic expressions.
# "After Rain": a new short form of E-Chi (Tai-Chi-like exercise with EL hand/body signs) was uploaded.

# Domain name: earthlanguage.org was offered from her best supporter. Although EL group is not officially organized yet, perhaps in the future it must need the name. She took the meaning of 'org' as 'organic' at this time. You know how organic the EL system is, looking around the site.

# Revised the contents of main English pages, adding the footnote page about human communication methods in the past. Continue to fill contents of the dictionary.

# In Summer, changed the computer hardware, switching the software from MS 95 into Office2000. It gave her a lot of troubles, becoming unable to type EL. It took much time to figure out how to manage improving the dictionary.

# Because of the monthly poem section, her communications with haikuists increased, and EL seems to be enjoyed among teachers and students of foreign languages, graphic design, and a musician, computer technicians, and constructor of other languages in various countries.

# The EL news mails vol. 13-14 were published this year.

# The 9.11 shock let her make a poem with the EL symbol of 'global peace'/'hello'.
It was difficult for her to understand most American's sudden change and their movement after 911, and she worked with Japanese groups to learn what would be going on and to help ordinary Afghan people.

2000

# Thank god, Y2K brought no problem.
But, got a huge trouble by the upgrading software later: thousands of image-file-links changed and couldn't work. It took months of early this year to fix entire pages.

# A new trial, E-Chi was opened: this was the earlier version of EL Meditation Exercise made of EL body-signs and Tai-Chi movement.

# EL users are still very few, but they found the EL site after searching  many linguistic sites for the future communication, for scientific consideration  and creation, for phonetic rational writings.
By the help of some of them, the EL ASCII were made.
(It worked until the new version came up on 2006)

# The EL News Letter Vol. 8- Vol. 12 were published this year

1999

# The EL small gathering started since February; and continued for several times.
But there was a problem: my English speech was too slow for busy Californians. I realized it need more time to prepare better presentations. The visitors were kind giving me suggestions.

# Since February, started the monthly poem section to introduce a haiku/a short poem in EL from English/Japanese originals.

# Also started the irregular EL news mail with timely topics and news about EL. Published vol. 1-vol. 7 on 1999.

# Started very busy email communications with linguists. Learning how deep gaps were in between  west and east, the whole EL site had to be checked on terms and explanations. Also Yoshiko knew that a good logical thinker is not always good for visual thinking. Speaking custom trains making a straight flowing line of logic, and the custom to use visual bases trains to feel totality of a situation immediately. Although it is hard to explain by words to the people who've no experienced visual thinking methods.

# She concerned a lot about the Y2K problem, specially for her using only one EL typing program, which she wish to share with others, but couldn't because the memory of the special program was in hidden files in Windows 95.

1998

January
Renewed the all bases image files to look better.
The pages of the definition system in English  were mostly uploaded; the EL grammar could be much clearer.

Spring
All pages of the Dictionary site were uploaded, under incomplete condition though. At least it helps giving the EL total view .

May 21 through Jun 11.
She had a trip to Japan after ten years. She saw many people and reported  about EL. The Internet was not that popular like in the US yet. Perhaps because the cost was expensive and by the linguistic problem.

Summer and Fall
Time flew for writing an large article, rebuilding the EL sites (Japanese and English both versions).
A Japanese Internet monthly magazine, 'ACARA', the December  version introduced EL Homepage. She has never registered the EL site in anywhere yet, so it surprised her. Thanks.
Also thanks to Mr. A. K. (an engineer in Japan) for sending her 15 useful books for writing and etc.

Oct. 25
The word [Combination-code] formerly used was changed into [Compounded-character]. Also [basic codes] was changed into [bases], but the bases folder name [codes] couldn't be changed, because too many links had been made with it already. You who download the EL zip file might think strange about it.

until Dec.
Prepared a small text booklet for the EL bases.

1997

Jan. 18th - May 24th, EL series in Saturday local paper
Yoshiko's articles about Earth Language were in the Japanese newspaper North American Daily. According to some responses, the readers seemed to like my basic idea, but at that time, none of them had the ability to see the EL Japanese website with more details.

Feb.
Started opening the EL English version site with help from K. F. and Don for checking English. At that time, her English ability was so poor that she needed a Japanese English dictionary several times for a line.
A columnist Mr. Kamenosuke Sakakibara (93) introduced EL in his daily column in the Japanese newspaper North American Daily.
Tomo visited San Francisco from Kyoto, and sharing his web site in Japan, built the EL download site to take Yoshiko's documents.

Spring
Started to upload the English version of the EL system issues.
She joined to a ML group Ｇｌｏｂｅｒｓ (mostly Japanese members living in the U.S.) and started to get good hints and suggestions from them.

summer
Yoshiko had a chance to use EL signs to teach Origami and other paper crafts to kids at a San Francisco Children Library once a week during their summer vacation. They enjoyed the signs and signing sometimes worked better than speaking, for such as attention please and be quiet.

Yoshiko joined Judith Kajiwara's Natural Dance Class to develop some dance using EL body-signs. Also she made some visual works using the EL symbols.

Fall and the last season of the year
After talking with some artists and linguistic American people about EL, she felt needs of the EL text booklet and more details for the EL system in the English web site. So she mostly concentrated on that project.

Earth Language 1988-1996, struggling, struggling.....

Originally a visual artist, Yoshiko F. McFarland whose birthday was Pearl Harbor Day (in the US calendar), got this EL inspiration in 1988: a year after her immigration from Japan to the US. About what brought her the inspiration and how this project started, please see the EL and the founder's background page

In 1992, the EL proposal was introduced to the public for the first time through a local Japanese newspaper. North American Daily and the magazine Adoa
But Yoshiko realized that the first concrete idea was not rational enough for computing when she started to use a computer in 1994. So she rebuilt the whole EL system from the bottom again.

In the same year, Tomotake Fujita programmed an EL writing tool for her. It made EL typing possible with her first computer. Then she made a couple of large documents in Japanese; one was about the philosophy of EL, and the other was about concrete proposition for using actual symbols and the grammar.

In 1996, she started to learn about the Internet to build the EL Homepage voluntarily being supported only by her personal relationships. It needed great effort and financial support. So she tried to apply for some grants, but this project seemed too unique for them yet. She had to continue to carry on with it anyhow.

To the top