language existence

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+# compact representation
+compact representation is a hopefully compact representation for ideas. this document serves as its official specification.
+
+a CR "document" is a sequence of ASCII characters. characters outside of the range 0x20-0x7E are forbidden, except for `\n` (0x0A) and `\t` (0x09). when presenting CR to a human person, the exact encoding details are irrelevant, as humans read text with their eyes (or other sense organs). however, the characters in a CR document must be reasonably legible as their ASCII equivalents. it does not matter if the human reader is not able to discern the exact whitespace characters used in a document as long as they are able to discern their presence and location.
+
+## syntax
+a CR document consists of any number of sentences. a sentence in CR consists of a single expression. each expression in CR evaluates to a noun.
+
+an expression consists of a literal noun (expressed as a sequence of alphebetic characters or if it is a number, numerical characters), a binary operation, or a unary operation. unary operators prefix the expression they operate upon. binary operators appear between the expressions they operate upon and are right-associative. parenthesis can be used to explicitly group expressions.
+
+"quotations" are a special type of literal noun which refer to statements or sequences of text themselves. there are two types of quotations. a bracket quotation is surrounded in square brackets, and must contain within it a syntactically valid CR document. a normal quotation is enclosed in double quotes and may contain anything of any syntactic validity or language. however, a normal quotation must be properly escaped. the only escape sequences available in a normal quotation are `\\` and `\"`.
+
+### described in EBNF
+```
+alpha = ? [a-z][A-Z] ? ;
+num = ? [0-9] ? ;
+ws = { ? whitespace characters ? } ;
+
+literal = alpha , { alpha } | num , { num } | quote ;
+
+binop = ? binary operator, see § binary operators ? ;
+unop = ? unary operator, see § unary operators ? ;
+
+operation = unop , ws , expr
+	| ( literal | "(" , ws, expr , ")", ws ) , binop , ws , expr ;
+
+expr = literal | operation | "(" , ws , expr , ")" , ws
+
+document = ws , { expr }
+
+quote char = "\\" , ? any character ? | ? any character except double quotes ?
+normal quote = "\"" , { quote char } , "\""
+
+bracket quote = "[" , document , "]"
+
+quote = normal quote | bracket quote
+```
+
+## the meaning of a noun
+the meaning of literal nouns (which are not quotations or numbers) is determined thusly (in this exact order):
+
+1. if the meaning of the literal noun, is defined in this standard's noun list, then the meaning of the noun is according to the list.
+2. if the meaning of the literal noun has been defined previously via the `::=` operator, then the meaning of the noun is according to that definition.
+3. the meaning of the literal noun must be determined from context, e.g. it is the name of a person.
+
+it is recommended that nonstandard nouns (nouns defined via step #2 or #3) are initially capitalized to distinguish them from standard nouns, which will never be capitalized. however, this is just proposed convention and is not required to conform to the standard.
+
+## the meaning of a sentence
+a sentence consists of a single expression. each expression evaluates to a noun, and so to find the meaning of a sentence, the expression is evaluated. if the expression's meaning is X, then the meaning of the sentence is "there exists X".
+
+CR makes no distinction between statements such as "the/a person who is thinking exists" and "the/a person is thinking". both would be:
+```
+g>:f
+```
+## operator side-effects
+some operators have **side-effects** which means that
+
+## binary operators
+the binary operators, when used, evaluate to their definitions below.
+
+the two operands are denoted as `x` and `y` in these definitions. they are the first and second operands respectively. `*_x` or `*_y` are to be intepreted as "(an) instance(s) of `x`" or "(an) instance(s) of `y`".
+### `=`
+`x` which is the same thing as `y`
+
+### `>`
+`x` which causes `*_y`
+
+### `>:`
+`x` which manifests `*_y`
+
+### `&`
+`x` and `y`
+
+### `^`
+`x` xor `y`
+
+### `|`
+`x` or `y`
+
+### `?`
+`y` which exists if `x` exists
+
+### `?_`
+a hypothetical `y` which exists according to/in the perspective of `*_x`
+
+### `/`
+`y` which is located in/on/at `*_x`
+
+### `%`
+`y` which concerns/pertains to/is about `x`
+
+### `~`
+`y` which is similar to/like/as `x`
+
+### `$`
+`y` which is the conduit of/embodies `x`
+
+### `#_`
+`x` number of `y`
+
+## unary operators
+the unary operators, when used, evaluate to their definitions below.
+
+the operand to the unary operator is denoted as `x` in these defintions. `*_x` is to be interpred as "(an) instance(s) of `x`".
+
+### `*_`
+some specific instance(s) of `x`
+
+### `&_`
+all instances of `y` where `x` is an instance of `y`; *such that* `&_*_x` *is equivalent to* `x`
+
+### `!`
+nothing that is `x` or `*_x`
+
+### `!!:`
+`x`; *this operator has the* **side-effect** *of emphasizing* `x` in the sentence
+
+### `?:`
+a hypothetical/possible `x`
+
+### `?/`
+the truth value of the statetment "there exists `x`"
+
+### `#`
+the amount of `x` which exist
+
+## clarification: the meaning of `*_x`
+the difference between `*_x` and `x` can be thought of like this: if `x` is "dog"/"dogs", then `*_x` is "some dogs" or "a dog". the difference becomes quite relevant when one performs definitions.
+
+if one makes the definition `X::=a`, then `X` is exactly the same thing as `a`. any usage of `X` would be identical to using `a`, which means that this definition wouldn't be very useful. instead, you can define `X` as an instance of `a` and then makes tatemetns about it, for instance `X::=*_a i>:X` would mean that `X` is a specific something, and that something is something you did.
+
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+lang.md
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+# compact representation noun list (work in progress)
+this noun list is subject to arbitrary change at any time. this list is at present, extremely incomplete. it is intended that usage will make clear what words are useful and necessary to the language.
+
+### a
+thing, something, anything, for all x, x is an instance of `a`
+
+### b
+action, deed
+
+### c
+concept
+
+### d
+shape, form
+
+### e
+manner, characteristic
+
+### f
+idea, thought
+
+### g
+person
+
+### h
+the reader(s) of the current document
+
+### i
+the author(s) of the current document
+
+### j
+communication, statement
+
+### k
+something previously referred to or salient
+
+### l
+living thing
+
+### y
+something which doesn't exist
+
+### z
+nothing, ∅, something which always exists
+
+### af
+bee