Concept
Gellish is an ontology language for data storage and communication, designed and developed by Andries van Renssen since mid-1990s. It started out as an engineering modeling language ("Generic Engineering Language", giving it the name, "Gellish") but evolved into a universal and extendable conceptual data modeling language with general applications. Because it includes domain-specific terminology and definitions, it is also a semantic data modelling language and the Gellish modeling methodology is a member of the family of semantic modeling methodologies. Although its concepts have 'names' and definitions in various natural languages, Gellish is a natural-language-independent formal language. Any natural language variant, such as Gellish Formal English is a controlled natural language. Information and knowledge can be expressed in such a way that it is computer-interpretable, as well as system-independent and natural language independent. Each natural language variant is a structured subset of that natural language and is suitable for information modeling and knowledge representation in that particular language. All expressions, concepts and individual things are represented in Gellish by (numeric) unique identifiers (Gellish UID's). This enables software to translate expressions from one formal natural language to any other formal natural languages. Gellish is intended for the expression of facts (statements), queries, answers, etc. For example, for the complete and unambiguous specification of business processes, products, facilities and physical processes; for information about their purchasing, fabrication, installation, operation and maintenance; and for the exchange of such information between systems, although in a system-independent, computer-interpretable and language-independent way. It is also intended for the expression of knowledge and requirements about such things. The definition of Gellish can be derived from the definition of Gellish Formal English by considering 'expressions' as relations between the Unique Identifiers only.