dabanese, 1

The syntax of the relaxed, as well as of the strict version of dabanese is simple. Initially we have the notion of an ideogram and of the six symbols which are not ideograms, namely three kind of paretheses: ( ) { } [ ]. Both the ideograms and the six symbols are called characters. Given a phrase or a sequence of phrases A₁ ... A_n (possibly empty, when n=0), we may use them to create new phrases as follows:

1. a single ideogram is a phrase; it is also a strict phrase;


2. if A is a phrase then [A] is a phrase — it is called an emphasized phrase; If left bracket symbol [ is not the first character of A, and if A is a strict phrase then also [A] is a strict phrase (in plain language: strict dabanese allows only a single emphasis);


3. if A₁ ... A_n is a finite sequence of dabanese phrases then the concatenation
   
   { A₁ ... A_n }
   which inserts the sequence between braces, is a dabanese phrase; it is called an unordered phrase, and A₁ ... A_n are its subphrases; if none of the subphrases is emphasized then the resulting phrase is called an unordered list; if all subphrases A₁ ... A_n are strict, and if not more than one of them is emphasized, then the resulting phrase is strict;


4. if A₁ ... A_n is a finite sequence of dabanese phrases then the concatenation
   
   ( A₁ ... A_n )
   which inserts the sequence between parentheses ( ), is a dabanese phrase; it is called an ordered phrase, and A₁ ... A_n are its subphrases; if none of the subphrases is emphasized then the resulting phrase is called an ordered list; if all subphrases A₁ ... A_n are strict, and if not more than one of them is emphasized, then the resulting phrase is strict;



5. every phrase (relaxed or strict) is obtained by a finite application of the above rules.

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Now remember that it took you a couple of years to learn your native language, and another couple of years to learn your next language, ... Thus please be patient and tolerate well the first dabanese phrases, after the empty (hence invisible) phrase:

( )

{ }

The meaning of the dabanese phrases depends on the society of the dabanese folks (called dabers), just like in the case of natural languages. I am a dabanese folk, and I claim that the meaning of both above dabanese phrases is "nothingness". The difference between the two is something of a joke to me, because we have here an ordered and an unordered nothingness, but it's really the same. Continuing along such amusing lines we may also consider phrases which are not easy on eyes (but I'll help the cause by using informally the bold case):

{ ( ) [ ( ) ] }

{ [ { } ] ( ) }

They mean something like "empty nothingness" or "nothingness which is nothing". To make them easier on our eyes let's introduce pigeon ideograms () and {} (no space between the parentheses or braces) which stand for the same as dabanese phrases ( ) and { }. Then we may rewrite the above two dabaphrases as:

( () [ () ] )

{ [ {} ] () }

We may say that emphasized phrases are meaningful, as opposed to phrases which are merely lists. Thus above two phrases are meaningful — silly but meaningful formally.