Assyrian, Babylonian, Sumerian Translator Created

DrJackson writes "A new online translator that can translate Assyrian, Babylonian, Sumerian and Egyptian hieroglyphics (1 of the 3 types anyway) has been developed. This is the first time I ever saw a translator for cuneiform. Something like this would be great for translating interesting historical records like the Amarna Letters."

Comments

bo-ring

[heptapod]

wake me when they can do pnakotic

Monty Python

[JoshWurzel]

Now I can finally find out what the capital of Assyria is! I hope its not "aaaarrrrhhhh"

I can not wait...

[orionop]

for the unfortunate translations of the Epic of Gilgamesh that rival the hilarity of the google translation of the japanese amazon site.

Translation Test

[eric2hill]

Will it translate casting liquified limestone correctly?

I swear, that was the funniest damn thing I've seen on slashdot.

Oh good!

[Chairboy]

I've been meaning to write a 'Hello world' Nam-shub...

Re:You Idiotic American Bible-Belt Pussy!

[AgentOJ]

You idiotic anonymous coward!

The Pnakotic Manuscripts were an invention of H.P. Lovecraft and factor into the Cthulhu Mythos. Besides, everyone knows the origin of Mankind lies within the information from the Elder Gods.

Re:Uh...right.

[Rebelgecko]

As a technologist who also reads ancient Egyptian (from college) as well as Akkadian (== Assyrian & Babylonian, with slightly different scripts over the years) and Sumerian, I can fairly readily call shenanigans on this one. The sophistication of translation here is about as deep as the 'your name in hieroglyphs' stuff you find in museum stores and the horrid Dover reprints of Budge's books.

And don't even get me started on Sumerian. Professional Sumerologists still can't render half of the agglutinative morphemes that appear in Sumerian verbs. I definitely agree with you on translating difficulties. When your last sentence was translated into English, most of it came out as gibberish!

Re:Oh Great!

[skoaldipper]

Did someone say Sumerian?

I hear they recently translated a speech by some Governor, addressing a San Francisco parade during a recent California primary election stop...
[...]
Candidate - Open immigration, mass transit, relief of property taxes at your doorstep, and windmills instead of coal.
Mayor - Wrong! Governor! What is best in life?
Governor - To brush your enemies, see them drivel before you, and to wear the garmentation of the women.

Now I can send my Christmas cards out!

[noewun]

"It says, 'bird, camel, Horus, snake, bundle of reeds!' "

Re:Uh...right.

[SlowMovingTarget]

And don't even get me started on Sumerian. Professional Sumerologists still can't render half of the agglutinative morphemes that appear in Sumerian verbs.

Pffft. That's because they don't have DirectX 10 on Vista, which has had agglutinative morpheme rendering for like forever already.

Re:I didn't think they'd cracked modern languages.

[megaditto]

I hardly ever get to speak English with real people.

Welcome to slashdot. Do not worry, you'll fit right in here.

Re:I didn't think they'd cracked modern languages.

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you mean? I can speak fluently in several ancient languages. I happen to be an expert at COBOL.

Completely useless

[davidc]

It doesn't even have a translation for "cheezburger", let alone "bukkit"...

Re:I didn't think they'd cracked modern languages.

[Nazlfrag]

Bird bird eye feather snake bird squiggly, you insensitive clod!

Re:Uh...right.

[Bastard of Subhumani]

there are so many words that are actually complete sentences

Ah. So it's like German, then?

Translators are great

[TheSciBoy]

I translate all my witnesses with the aid of google. It works large! I do not see that what the problem is. Nobody can dreaming that I am using a translator less that says they.