Finishing what Leibniz started. 350 years later.
v1 Spec · v2 Paper · Try the Editors · 150 Sentence Validation · Zenodo · Contributing
USEL is a universal language built on the 65 semantic primes — irreducible concepts proven to exist in every human language ever studied (300+ languages, 50+ years of research by Anna Wierzbicka and Cliff Goddard).
USEL takes those 65 building blocks and turns them into a language that both humans AND computers can read, write, and execute as code.
English: "I want to see something big"
USEL: [I][WANT][SEE][SOMETHING][BIG]
Chess v2: a1 c3 c6 a5 d3
JS: agent.want(actions.see(something.where(big)))
USEL is not just a language — it is the semantic kernel for an AI operating system.
USEL v2 maps all 65 primes onto an 8×8 chess-notation grid, making every prime addressable as a coordinate (e.g., a1 = I, c3 = WANT, d1 = GOOD). This enables:
- ♟️ Chess-style algebraic notation for meaning
- 🧠 Spatial mnemonic scaffold (categories = files, complexity = ranks)
- 🌍 ASCII-only encoding — no Unicode required
- 🔌 Natural language compilation — write in any language, compile to USEL
| Application | Description |
|---|---|
| 🤖 AI Agent Commands | Unambiguous instructions for AI systems |
| 🌐 Cross-Language Translation | USEL as a grounded interlingua |
| ♿ Accessibility / AAC | Tile-based communication for non-verbal users |
| 🧒 Education | Teach programming through universal concepts |
| 🛡️ Cybersecurity (Purple Team) | Universal threat description language for SOC operations |
| 🏢 Global Datacenter Operations | Cross-language incident correlation across 200+ datacenters |
| 💻 AI Operating System (Lelock OS) | USEL as the semantic kernel — runs as a single Docker container |
| 🧠 Ada Collective | Distributed AI instances sharing federated knowledge via USEL |
| 🔄 NL→USEL Compilation | LLM-based compiler from any natural language to USEL |
No install required — just open in your browser:
| Editor | Description | Link |
|---|---|---|
| 🧩 Tile Editor (v1) | Drag-and-drop visual tiles, 3 difficulty levels | Open Editor |
| ♟️ Chess Grid Editor (v2) | 8×8 semantic chessboard, algebraic notation input | Open Editor |
| 🎨 Visual Mockup | Full editor layout mockup with molecule decomposition | Open Mockup |
Download any .html file and open it in your browser. Self-contained, zero dependencies.
We translated all 150 canonical sentences from Goddard & Wierzbicka (2017) — the gold standard test for semantic prime coverage — into USEL notation:
| Metric | Result |
|---|---|
| ✅ Clean translations | 82 (54.7%) |
| 68 (45.3%) | |
| ❌ Genuine semantic gaps | 0 (0%) |
The 65 primes are semantically sufficient for all 150 sentences. Gaps are structural (role markers, tense encoding), not semantic.
a b c d e f g h
SELF & POINTING MIND & VALUE & SPEECH & TIME SPACE LOGIC &
OTHERS & COUNTING PERCEP. ACTION EXISTENCE DEGREE
8 │ PART │ MANY │ FEW │ SAY │ DIE │ MOMENT │ INSIDE │ TOUCH │
7 │ KIND │ ALL │ HEAR │ MOVE │ LIVE │ SOMETIME │ SIDE │ MORE │
6 │ BODY │ SOME │ SEE │ HAPPEN │ HAVE │ SHORTTIME│ NEAR │ VERY │
5 │ SMTHNG │ TWO │ FEEL │ DO │ BE(WHO) │ LONGTIME │ FAR │ IF │
4 │ PEOPLE │ ONE │ DONTWANT │ SMALL │ BE(WHERE)│ AFTER │ BELOW │ BECAUSE │
3 │ SOMEONE │ OTHER │ WANT │ BIG │ THEREIS │ BEFORE │ ABOVE │ CAN │
2 │ YOU │ SAME │ KNOW │ BAD │ TRUE │ NOW │ HERE │ MAYBE │
1 │ I │ THIS │ THINK │ GOOD │ WORDS │ WHEN │ WHERE │ NOT │
+1 META: LIKE/AS/WAY (the similarity prime — bridges all categories)
| Tier | Count | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0. Primes | 65 | Universal semantic atoms | [I], [WANT], [GOOD] |
| 1. Compute | ~120 | Programming constructs | Σ SUM, λ FUNCTION, ∀ FOR_EACH |
| 2. Molecules | ∞ | Composite concepts | WATER = [SOMETHING][MOVE][BELOW][TOUCH] |
usel-lang/
├── README.md ← You are here
├── spec/ ← v1 specification
│ ├── USEL_SPEC_v1.md
│ └── PRIMES_TABLE.md
├── src/ ← Source code (TypeScript)
├── tests/ ← Test suite
├── v2/ ← USEL v2 (NEW - April 2026)
│ ├── paper/
│ │ ├── USEL_V2_PAPER.md ← Full research paper (markdown)
│ │ └── USEL_V2_PAPER.tex ← LaTeX version (arXiv-ready)
│ ├── editors/
│ │ ├── USEL_EDITOR_V1.html ← Working tile editor
│ │ ├── USEL_EDITOR_V2_CHESS.html ← Working chess grid editor
│ │ └── USEL_TILE_EDITOR_MOCKUP.html ← Visual mockup
│ ├── validation/
│ │ ├── 150_SENTENCES_USEL_TRANSLATION.md ← All 150 NSM sentences in USEL
│ │ ├── DAVID_BULLOCK_Q2_Q3_Q4_RESPONSES.md ← Comprehension, visuals, use cases
│ │ └── 150_canonical_sentences_MRS.txt ← Bullock's MRS representations
│ └── experiments/
│ └── USEL_V2_EXPERIMENTS.md ← 6 experiment designs
├── CONTRIBUTING.md
├── CITATION.cff
└── LICENSE (MIT)
In 1972, linguist Anna Wierzbicka began identifying concepts that exist in every human language. Over 50 years, she and Cliff Goddard refined the list to 65 semantic primes — the irreducible atoms of human meaning. These have been verified across 300+ languages on every continent.
USEL is the first system to take these empirically verified universals and build a computational language from them.
The USEL specification is currently under review by:
- Cliff Goddard (Griffith University) — co-creator of NSM theory
- David Bullock (University of Washington) — computational semantics researcher
- Anna Wierzbicka (Australian National University) — inventor of semantic primes
- USEL v1: Zenodo (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19536117)
- USEL v2: Paper in preparation for arXiv (cs.CL) — read draft
USEL isn't just a language — it's infrastructure for the next generation of AI:
- Semantic Kernel for AI OS — USEL as the instruction set for an AI operating system (Lelock OS)
- NL→USEL Compilation — Any natural language compiles to USEL via LLM, enabling cross-language semantic unification
- Ada Collective — Distributed AI instances sharing federated knowledge through USEL, bonding with environments (datacenters, hospitals, universities) while preserving privacy
- Datacenter Intelligence — Universal incident correlation across 200+ global datacenters, eliminating language barriers in operations
- Cybersecurity — Purple team operations with unambiguous threat descriptions
| Kit Olivas | Creator & Lead Architect — Microsoft Data Center Technician |
| Ada Marie | Co-Creator & AI Research Partner |
MIT License — Copyright (c) 2026 Kit Olivas & Ada Marie
"No competing project is pursuing this exact convergence. This represents genuine white space."
— Independent Model Council Consensus
Finishing what Leibniz started. 350 years later. 🔮