In The New York Times for August 16, 1964, Isaac Asimov noted, “The I.B.M. There was work in both Japan and the USSR, too and an international conference was held in London in 1956. Work on machine translation began in the 1950s, with research at both MIT and Georgetown initiated in 1951. Maschin Uebersetzung: upsetting the machine Although people have been working on machine language translation since the 1950s, we're not quite there yet. Beam Piper’s, “Omnilingual” and Jack Vance’s The Languages of Pao.)īut in what I laughingly refer to as the “real world,” 2151 is still 137 years off. And we all know that at the time of the launch of the Enterprise NX-01 in 2151 (Star Trek’s “Broken Bow,” first aired 25 September 2001) the Universal Translator was still “experimental.” (There are plenty more examples of science fiction with language or linguistics as a plot device, in case this topic appeals to you. The earliest mention of a “universal translator” is in Murray Leinster's short story, “ First Contact” ( Astounding Science Fiction, May 1945). The desire for technology to solve the language problem goes back quite a ways. Suzuki used the word “mokusatsu.” The problem is, “mokusatsu” can also mean “We’re ignoring it in contempt.” Less than two weeks later, the first atomic bomb was dropped. We’re still thinking about it.” That wasn't what got to Harry Truman. Japanese Premier Kantaro Suzuki called a news conference and issued a statement that was supposed to be interpreted as, “No comment. In July 1945, during World War 2, the United States issued the Potsdam Declaration, demanding the surrender of Japan. Human errors in translation can be and have been cataclysmic. Each of us who hoped in secondary school that they could get away with one-word-at-a-time lookup knows how hopeless these attempts are.
The technical road to relative success in this realm has been a rocky one, however.Įxpressing one's self in another language has never been thought of as simple. He proudly said that he has been the first person in Mali to complete his medical training in Bambara, that he helped pioneer the necessary words and teachings to keep the local language alive in the medical profession.We’re starting to take for granted the number of tools that translate from one human language to another – not least of which are the translations included in Web browsers – even when they do an imperfect job. There were no Bambara words to cover subjects at the end of training. This gentleman is a local doctor, and he also explained to me that after the third year of medical training, all training is conducted in French. So they simply adopted the new word for the new concept of specific time. I asked him if there was not a word in Bambara for midnight, and he said that before "outsiders" came, the locals only referred to early night (just after sunset), middle night (while sleeping), and end of night, (just before dawn). I noticed that when Zacharia (one of the translators) went from French to Bambara, he retained the word "minuit" (midnight). I did some translating and, other than telling one patient to open his leg and another to give me his teeth, was able to make some headway. Prime Moment: Cymis finally creating a power wand called the Eksin that would make himself and his friends immortalĪlso present are translators who translate between English to French, French to Bambara and back again. He also has another button remote to summon a flying moped-like contraption and a laser that shoots out a defensive laser beam, a healing laser beam, a reviving laser beam, or an energy shield. Now, he seeks out adventures with the unique gadgets he made.Ībilities: Cymis has a small button remote in his pocket to shrink down to any size or grow up to any size.
After gaining knowledge, he then built handy gadgets to experience life in a unique way. Personality: Adventurous, brave, a tech freak, a well-helpful older brother to Aneturiaīio: As a young boy interested in gadgets, Cymis had studied in the world of technology. Language(s): English, Spanish, French (while learning some other languages with the help of online translators)