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Computer Translator Ready for Testing in Iraq
cgibby98 wrote to mention a Wired News story about a battle-zone translation technology that may allow near real-time conversations between English and Arabic speakers. From the article: "Funded by Darpa, the system would allow troops to communicate in Arabic through a laptop computer equipped with voice recognition and translation software. Troops could speak in English and have their words instantly translated into Iraqi Arabic, 'spoken' by a computerized man's voice. The program also translates Arabic into English. Will it replace the need for an interpreter when you're having some sort of high-level conversation? Absolutely not. But it is absolutely to the point where it could be useful in some carefully chosen situations."
Shit like this has to work in an environment where life and death decisions are made based on the perceived the quality of a translation. Hilarious glitches won't lighten the mood unless you're a true sadist.
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On many occasions, it's been shown that if the pidgin language is used consistently around kids, they'll start using it, but just add in all this extra grammatical stuff that they expect to hear but don't - and then the language is said to become "creolized".
Also: we don't predominantly think in language. We think in something that's more base than, and was prior to, language. Everyone always hears that decades-old, long-ago-disproven Whorfian line, that people (in the same species, with the same neurological makeup) actually think differently according to what language they speak - but no one's buying it anymore except those Psych 101 students who are going to major in elementary education instead of cognitive development.
I'm a language dork so I feel like I HAVE to comment every time I see language stuff on /. Except for all those "it's"es where it should be "its". Those, I can let you guys have.
Intelligent Design: because MATH is HARD.
Hey, did anybody consider that there is not the Arabic out there? When we're talking about the Arabic, it's basically a synthetic language, set up by islamic scholars sometime between the 7th and 10th century. There was so much trouble reading the Qur'an, they needed to write a prescriptive grammar and dictionary which cannot be backed up by older texts other than the Qur'an itself. This is a major problem with rabic.
Aside from that, Arabic differs so much from one country to another, you can't just set up something to translate it. It's like saying English and German are Germanic languages, so let's make a translator from Germanic (ie Eglsih or German or Danish or dutch) to Chinese. It won't work (I'm talking about the present). Vowel qualities differ so much, there's no chance to match two regions. Heere again the problem lies with the Arabic, it's a sacred language and nobody would say he or she is talking something like Iraqi or Moroccan, they all speak Arabic. If you lose your language, you lost part of your identity.
Okay, this looks somehow Orientalist but nevertheless, there is a problem with speaking about plain Arabic, it's a bit more complicated.
I'm stationed in central Iraq, and think this software would be great as a backup tool. I've never used this hardware, so I can't comment on how well it really works.
At the moment, I'd stick with my Iraqi 'terps for day to day operations. I have 9 working for me now, I trust all of them. Typically they're screened by a US Company, and are pretty smart guys who love their country.
Where they prove to be extra valuable is when they use their "Arab-sense". They can tell where people are from by the way they talk, or look. They know the difference between Iraqi and Syrian Arabic... and even between cities in Iraq. They're great at defusing situations, and act as my eyes and ears when working with locals/Iraqi soldiers. They are also able communicate my intent without directly translating my words. Sometimes a direct translation isn't the best way to go, as it can be confusing. If needed, they can further clarify what I'm trying to convey. That's why I like to call them my 'terps, instead of translators. Strict translation may be OK in certain situations, but when you're in a hot situation having someone interpret can be necessary.
That's the sort of thing that shocks and calls to action any reasonable person, since we're capable of feeling empathy for people other than ourselves.
Here's a shocked Donald Rumsfeld, called to action.
James T Fallows is comparing apples and oranges. 1) this is not 1942. We don't have a huge pool of eager, patriotic draftees fresh off a decade of depression looking for purpose in their lives.
2) this is not 1942. The military has little leverage on college campuses in general, and is unlikely to find the professors teaching southwest asian languages willing to cooperate with them.
3) this is not 1942. We aren't concentrating on breaking coded military communications by a traditional army in a war with clealy defined front lines. We're trying to root out a loose confederation of miltant religious extremists living and operating within the countries we've already conquered. We need to be able to talk to the locals, not just listen in to the enemy's phone calls. Subsequently, we don't have just one language to deal with. The military needs not only Arabic, but Pashto, Dari, Azgari, Uzbek, Turkmen, Berberi, Aimaq, Baluchi, Basha Indonesian, Urdu, Turkic, and Persian Farsi linguists.
His attempt to compare A) the monumental task of finding qualified instructors for obscure languages, developing curriculum for the courses, and teaching these extremely difficult languages that (in some cases) don't even have an alphabet; and B) getting a bunch of people to learn, or finding people who already speak, a common and (relatively) widely known language like Japanese; well, the attmept is basically idiotic.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
I can speak to how hard this is. The Arabic course is actually 63 weeks, with an additional 4 more months at Goodfellow AFB, TX. I was a former Russian linguist. I say former linguist because I washed out of the course with 2/3 of the class (yes only a 1/3 ended up graduating). Learning a language isn't hard, but the pace they are trying to teach it to you at is. It's OK though, I got reclassied into a much cooler job and I'm much happier with it.