OMOP Common Data Model

<mark>Heterogeneous information systems do not merely encode the same reality in different technical formats. They often partition reality differently, assign different identities, privilege different events, and embody different professional practices. To say that every source speaks a dialect is therefore more than a metaphor for incompatible column names. It is a statement about local ontologies. This essay examines data integration as a problem of translation rather than transcription. Drawing on linguistics, philosophy of language, ontology engineering, and category-theoretic intuition, it distinguishes lexical mapping from structural and pragmatic equivalence. It proposes a typed translation model that preserves local expressions while projecting them into shared Data Objects, and it explains why some mappings are exact, some contextual, and some irreducibly lossy. The goal of a mature Data Platform is not to abolish dialects but to establish a governed interlanguage through which local systems can participate in common computation without having their differences silently erased.</mark>