New approach to incorporating foreign language into everyday life being developed

• Game show pilot also in the works

The idea came to him while driving in a border area of New Mexico, the realization that the language of people living in such areas is peppered with words and phrases of the neighboring country.

Robert Deming spent much of his adult life in New York and California in the high-powered creative hot spots of the United States, but he grew up in El Paso and knew Ruidoso well, returning to the village when a family situation changed.

"It hit me that we in the Southwest and northern Mexico fuse language to understand each other better and faster," Deming said.

That concept led to YakYapp puzzles to allow a player to latch on naturally to key words without being overwhelmed with conjugating verbs and idiomatic phrases. The idea was not so much to "learn" a language as to be able to recognize and use key words, he explained.

"With language familiarity being made a much easier personal pursuit, one can hopefully feel more comfortable about the greater world around them," he said. "Things are less daunting with a touch of ability to communicate. YakYapp is unlike any other language project in the world and I will argue that it is the most comfortable and most efficient way to step into a new language."

YakYapp's new technology is designed to be the most immediate efficient way to become familiar with the vocabulary of another language, Deming said.

"Think of it as a language familiarity accelerator," he said. "There is no pressure, no regimen, no class. The structure for familiarity is totally user/learner-guided and driven."

Deming also is scouting the area for a staging background to promote the YakYapp approach, website, product.and a game show.

"The actual game show is set to begin shooting in Las Vegas in a little over a month and will shoot there and in New York," he said Wednesday.

The patent-pending platform at YakYapp.com is under development, he said, as is YakYapp's proposed game show, "Interpretation," to establish awareness of YakYapp's key technologies.

"It asks contestants to use language fusion in play of the game and we are looking to speak with potential sponsors" and for a location and setting in the region to put the production together. A promotional pilot is planned for the El Paso-Las Cruces-Cuidad Juarez-Ruidoso area. Interested individuals can send head shots to info@yakyapp.com.

Deming is working with an international team on the project that includes Hanfu Zhang, desk top and web-based developer; Yossi Kedmi, physicist optics; and Sandeep Chauhan, app development leader.

The team has created "fun and challenging language-bridging puzzles to help introduce unfamiliar foreign words into a person's own daily communications," Deming said. "YakYapp puzzles are entertaining, yet enlightening games that bring commonly used foreign words and phrases into a person's own lexicon."

Deming stressed that the puzzles are not designed to feel academic.

"You can play them to take a step into a new language or play them as 'puzzle solvers,' just for entertainment," he said.

Deming said he also is working on relationships with Public Broadcasting System affiliates to allow interested sponsors such as families, companies and foundations to participate in the project through sponsorship of a language with significance to that sponsor. They will receive named credit for PBS programming, he said. The sponsor also will receive production credit on the game show..