Language Translation – Real-time translation of a dead language
Last week, Google added automatic translation of Latin to its translation platform. What’s in it for them?
It truly warms the heart to think that Latin students will now have equal access to machine translation along with their Spanish-studying counterparts, and will be able to take advantage of it to turn in dreadful translation work to their discouraged teachers.
Indeed, Google announced Thursday that Latin has been added to its choice of languages on Google Translate. While Latin teachers may have reacted with a collective sigh of dread, the search engine giant reassures: the platform will be “useful for the more than 100,000 American students who take the National Latin Exam every year, as well as to many more Latin language learners and scholars worldwide.”
As with all claims about machine translation, the verdict is still out. Competitor Yahoo was quick to point out that “Google's Latin Product Announcement Doesn't Translate.” The clever official announcement of the launch was largely in Latin, but when translated back into English, rendered sentences like this:
The Latin is unmatched because most of them Latin books have already been written and only a few of the new shall be hereafter.
Actually, the fact that “most of them Latin books have already been written” may be the key to Google’s interest in the ancient language. By dealing with a highly-translated language that will no longer evolve, Google may be able to glean uncharted insight about how translation works.
Betty Carlson
See Also
- Language Translation, Inc.
A leading language translation and interpretation service provider for more than 20 years.