Babelfish Sparks Minor Diplomatic Row

Stony Stevenson writes with a link to a cautionary tale on the ITnews site. A group of journalists heading to The Netherlands were gathering some information prior to the trip. They sent off an email to the Dutch foreign ministry asking some questions, but as they weren't native speakers they needed some help. Unfortunately, they turned to Babelfish for official correspondence. "The beginning of the email read: 'Helloh bud, enclosed five of the questions in honor of the foreign minister: The mother your visit in Israel is a sleep to the favor or to the bed your mind on the conflict are Israeli Palestinian.'"

Comments

Re:The question we're all thinking.

[caffeinemessiah]

Babelfish sparks minor diplomatic row

Morons trusting the legendary untrustworthiness of Babelfish for official work spark minor diplomatic row.

There.

They're only journalists

[iknownuttin]

"How could this email possibly have been sent?" an Israeli diplomat told the Jerusalem Post. "These journalists have sparked a major incident."

How can journalists spark a major diplomatic event?

Re:They're only journalists

[owlnation]

How can journalists spark a major diplomatic event?

Absolutely. I do not believe this story for one single second.

Firstly, diplomats are diplomats because they are smart and non-reactionary. They would not react like this to mails that presumably came from a domain that identified the senders as foreign journalists -- or otherwise identified the journalists as being just that.

In addition to this, (having lived in Holland myself) the Dutch are generally pretty good with the fact that few people speak Dutch. They are also used to dealing in a number of languages, and the sometimes accidental comedy that ensues. It's clear that the senders of this mail were not native speakers -- thus why would anyone overreact?

Truth is -- they wouldn't.

I call Bullshit.

Re:They're only journalists

[Anonymous Coward]

There was no overreaction.

According to local reporters here is what happenened: 5 Israeli journalists were preparing to go to The Netherlands. One of them, who (it turned out) didnt speak any English, was tasked with sending questions ahead. He used Babelfish to translate the Hebrew. Unfortunately, in Hebrew the word for "of" is close to the word for "mother". So, lots of "mother" in the text. Dutch diplomats were puzzled (I've read the text, it looked a bit like "all your mother belong to us") and asked for clarification. After which the other journalists found out and it was reported.

All in all, no big incident (just mild curiosity), but the journalists involved were very ashamed when it all came out and seem to have postponed their trips for the moment. Too bad, could have been fun having them on talkshows :)

What do you expect?

[AltGrendel]

They used the "English to Dutch Jive" setting.

It's not like this hasn't happened before...

[jspenguin1]

Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.

The translation was "flawed"

[vux984]

FTFA:

The beginning of the email read: 'Helloh bud, enclosed five of the questions in honor of the foreign minister: The mother your visit in Israel is a sleep to the favor or to the bed your mind on the conflict are Israeli Palestinian.'

The translation was flawed as Babelfish confused 'ha'im', the Hebrew word for 'if', with 'ha'ima', which means 'mother'.

Oh!!! Of course, that makes sense. Lets fix that right up: s/mother/if

Helloh bud, enclosed five of the questions in honor of the foreign minister: The if your visit in Israel is a sleep to the favor or to the bed your mind on the conflict are Israeli Palestinian.

I don't know about you, but I suspect there might be additional flaws.

Oblig.

[rock217]

Jive Lady: Oh stewardess! I speak jive.
Randy: Oh, good.
Jive Lady: He said that he's in great pain and he wants to know if you can help him.
Randy: All right. Would you tell him to just relax and I'll be back as soon as I can with some medicine?
Jive Lady: Jus' hang loose, blood. She gonna catch ya up on da' rebound on da' med side.
Second Jive Dude: What it is, big mama? My mama no raise no dummies. I dug her rap!
Jive Lady: Cut me some slack, Jack! Chump don' want no help, chump don't GET da' help!
First Jive Dude: Say 'e can't hang, say seven up!
Jive Lady: Jive ass dude don't got no brains anyhow! Hmmph!

Babelfish Doesn't Translate Hebrew

[Slashdot Parent]

I can't find any Hebrew translation option on the babelfish website.

Furthermore, in the Jerusalem Post article, they point to a site babelfish.com, which appears to be a SEO site and doesn't do translations at all.

Compound that with the question of "Why would the Dutch Foreign Ministry care about an email from some random Israeli reporter?", and I'm guessing that this entire story is a hoax.

Yes, I realize that the Jerusalem Post is supposedly a high-quality paper, but the fact that they linked to a site (babelfish.com) that doesn't even do online translations makes me think that this wasn't their most well-researched and well-substantiated work. If this is really causing such a fuss in Holland, how come there is nothing in the Dutch press about this?

The original grammer nazi

[Joe the Lesser]

CENTURION: What's this, then? 'Romanes Eunt Domus'? 'People called Romanes they go the house'?
BRIAN: It-- it says, 'Romans, go home'.
CENTURION: No, it doesn't. What's Latin for 'Roman'? Come on!
BRIAN: Aah!
CENTURION: Come on!
BRIAN: 'R-- Romanus'?
CENTURION: Goes like...?
BRIAN: 'Annus'?
CENTURION: Vocative plural of 'annus' is...?
BRIAN: Eh. 'Anni'?
CENTURION: 'Romani'. 'Eunt'? What is 'eunt'?
BRIAN: 'Go'. Let--
CENTURION: Conjugate the verb 'to go'.
BRIAN: Uh. 'Ire'. Uh, 'eo'. 'Is'. 'It'. 'Imus'. 'Itis'. 'Eunt'.
CENTURION: So 'eunt' is...?
BRIAN: Ah, huh, third person plural, uh, present indicative. Uh, 'they go'.
CENTURION: But 'Romans, go home' is an order, so you must use the...?
BRIAN: The... imperative!
CENTURION: Which is...?
BRIAN: Umm! Oh. Oh. Um, 'i'. 'I'!
CENTURION: How many Romans?
BRIAN: Ah! 'I'-- Plural. Plural. 'Ite'. 'Ite'.
CENTURION: 'Ite'.
BRIAN: Ah. Eh.
CENTURION: 'Domus'?
BRIAN: Eh.
CENTURION: Nominative?
BRIAN: Oh.
CENTURION: 'Go home'? This is motion towards. Isn't it, boy?
BRIAN: Ah. Ah, dative, sir! Ahh! No, not dative! Not the dative, sir! No! Ah! Oh, the... accusative! Accusative! Ah! 'Domum', sir! 'Ad domum'! Ah! Oooh! Ah!
CENTURION: Except that 'domus' takes the...?
BRIAN: The locative, sir!
CENTURION: Which is...?!
BRIAN: 'Domum'.
CENTURION: 'Domum'.
BRIAN: Aaah! Ah.
CENTURION: 'Um'. Understand?
BRIAN: Yes, sir.
CENTURION: Now, write it out a hundred times.
BRIAN: Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Hail Caesar, sir.
CENTURION: Hail Caesar. If it's not done by sunrise, I'll cut your balls off.

Whole Story is BS

[Slashdot Parent]

I'm beginning to suspect that the whole story is a hoax.

First off, babelfish doesn't translate Hebrew, and with good reason. Hebrew is hard for a computer to translate. The three letters, Heh Aleph Mem could have just as easily been translated to "the nation" or "the nut" (as in nuts and bolts) as it was to "the mother". The only way to know the correct translation is to know the context of the word, which is not always easy.

Secondly, whomever wrote this hoax doesn't speak Hebrew very well. You don't have to go from "ha'im" to "ha'ima" to get from "if" to "the mother". In fact, the letters Heh Aleph Mem could be read as "ha'im" (if) or "ha'aim" (the mother) without having to add a letter to get all the way to "ha'ima".

Lastly, the Dutch are world-renowned for their extreme tolerance. There is no way a Dutch person would be deeply offended over something like this.

Before they were led away...

[writermike]

Before the journalists were led away by police, one of them could be heard yelling, "My nipples explode with delight!"

Re:Mod Parent Up!

[lgw]

Journalists write fiction related to current events. It astounds me that they have any credibility left. Have you ever read manistream journalism about a technical issue that you were expert in? Total crap right? Do you think that's unusual somehow? Have you ever been interviewed, or read about events in which you participated? Total fabrication, right? Do you think that's somehow unusual?

Even when people complain about the press, they usually complain about the press failing to mislead the public in the correct direction. Amazing.