saysn

Saysn is a fictional programming language and data representation system used in educational and speculative contexts to illustrate declarative knowledge representation and natural language processing workflows. It is described as a lightweight, human-readable syntax that combines elements of scripting, data modeling, and narrative annotation.

Origin and scope: Saysn was introduced in hypothetical teaching materials and speculative fiction to demonstrate how a language can encode statements about agents, actions, and quotes. In these sources, saysn emphasizes readability and unambiguous semantics, aiming to support cross-context tracing of information without prescribing implementation details for real-world systems.

Design and features: Saysn uses an indentation-based, plain-text syntax. It allows defining entities (types and instances), relationships, and quoted statements. Data types include strings, numbers, booleans, lists, and maps. Statements convey speech acts with verbs such as says and reports to capture who spoke and what was said, along with optional sources and timestamps. The execution model is declarative, focusing on describing the state of knowledge rather than detailing procedural steps.

Example: In saysn, you might define participants and a conversation like this (in plain text):

person Alice

person Bob

conversation greet

Alice says "Hello, Bob." in greet

Bob says "Hi, Alice." in greet

source greet created_at 2024-01-01

Impact and reception: In teaching materials, saysn is used to show how a language can cleanly separate content (the quoted speech) from source and context (who said it, when, and in what conversation). Critics note that as a fictional construct it lacks concrete semantics for real-world execution and interoperability, but it can aid discussions about data provenance and narrative encoding.