Bing Translator Adds Klingon

Today Microsoft made an addition to its Bing translation service: the Klingon language. You can now easily read up on proper grooming habits for your Targ, learn how to perform routine maintenance on your painstiks, and brush up on your Shakespeare. You can also brush up on your tlhIngan Hol by reading your favorite websites through a translation filter. The timing is no coincidence; Star Trek: Into Darkness is coming out on Friday. Qapla'

Comments

Oblig

[AarghVark]

Qapla!

Re:Oblig

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean Qapla'
Yes, I endeavor to be accurate.

Re:Oblig

[cold fjord]

Klingon Grammar Warriors - stricter than even Grammar Nazis.

Today is a good day to conjugate! Qapla'

Re:Oblig

[Austerity Empowers]

Klingon grammar warriors slay the dangling participle, derail the run-on sentence, and annihilate the subject-verb disagreement!

Re:Oblig

[jamstar7]

Klingon grammar warriors slay the dangling participle, derail the run-on sentence, and annihilate the subject-verb disagreement!

You think that's bad, in the original Okuna Klingon dictionary, they prattle on about there being a lack of a verb for 'to be'. Then, in 'Undiscovered Country', Chang rattles on about 'To be or not to be, THAT is the question' and later throws more Shakespear references 'from the original Klingon'. And they wonder why every series has a 'bible' to keep this shit straight...

Re:Oblig

[Samantha Wright]

That just means the translation was a little creative. There are several natural languages with no 'being' verb. Even if Okrand (not Okuna!) didn't provide a way of discussing existence in his dictionary, it's silly to think there's no way of doing so in a widely-used language.

Re:Oblig

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, Klingon lacks a copula.
The translation for "To be, or not to be" uses the suffix for "continuing action" as a bare verb.
Nice translation.

Re:Oblig

[Samantha Wright]

That's not an unreasonable construct for a language that has lost the verb in everyday use. In many languages the progressive aspect is denoted by a modification of the copula; if the verb later disappeared, it could till be used on its own as an archaism. In most languages, as long as the audience understands what is being said, you can say just about anything. It's only in modernity that we've tried to standardise our habits.

Re:Oblig

[hairyfeet]

Dude after Enterprise and the reboot I don't see as how anything can be considered canon in that show anymore, same as Star Wars had the prequels shit all over canon as Skywalker went from a noble man whose fall was a tragedy to a whining PITA who thought dictatorships was great and who majored in being a douchebag.

I have to say i don't know who i feel more sorry for, Star Wars fans who had Lucas jar jar all over the franchise or Star Trek fans who had Brannon and Berman wiping their ass with the franchise for years. Probably Star trek fans as at least the SW fans got 3 true masterpiece movies whereas ST fans ended up with Voyager and Enterpiss making the entire federation look like retards.And maybe its just me but I could put up with 9 hours of jar jar stepping in the poop than take 9 minutes of Neelix and Archer because at least jar jar was supposed to be a moron, between Neelix and his "Oh I'm an expert in that, just watch...fail, fail, fail" and Archer and his "I'll make a 5 minute rambling speech followed by getting my ass handed to me...fail, fail,fail" it was like the writers were giving the audience the finger and having a contest on who could make the most unlikable character. Like Chuck at SFDebris said "With Jar Jar people said they hated him and Lucas toned him down and wrote him into the background whereas with Neelix when people said they hated him Berman said 'oh really? Triple his screentime!' thus proving how much the creative staff hated their audience"

Re:Oblig

[AK Marc]

There is no concept of tense in Chinese, but when you translate, you add in the tense as appropriate for the meaning. I haven't ever looked at Klingon as a language, but you don't need "creative" in translation to recognize "I wash clothes ago" means "I washed the clothes" (or possibly "I *already* washed the clothes" depending on context).

But it's all anti-academic when we recognize that it's a false fiction. Klingons aren't real, the language is artificial, and Shakespeare was originally written in English.

Re:Oblig

[Samantha Wright]

You may be excited and horrified to know that the common language of Papua New Guinea, Tok Pisin, does something similar. The horrifying part is that it's a creole based mostly on English—and they mark the past tense with the particle "pinis" after the verb (literally a mispronunciation of "finish".) Many, many languages fit under this isolating scheme, and many of them drop or reduce the value of copulas contextually as a result, although they're also pernicious users of auxiliary (helping) verbs.

Conlangs actually can get quite academic. There are several journals devoted exclusively to Tolkien's languages, and they discuss precisely this sort of thing.

Re:Oblig

[Anonymous Coward]

Neelix has taken the meaning of the word obnoxious and bugging to a new height. But Voyager had more problems than him. Two dreadful, boring seasons with 2-Dimensional Kazons (worst aliens in the history of Star Trek), a "punch-me-in-the-face-hard" Kes (set phasers to maximum and incinerate her) and that half-wit called Harry Kim.Too much technobabble and plot holes as large as the delta quadrant.

And don't get me started on Enterprise with THE worst actor in the entire history of movie and TV : Scott Bakula. With the glorious range of 1 (ONE) face and the charisma of a wet noodle.

Re:Oblig

[Anonymous Coward]

It was translated to klingon as "to continue or not to continue" (implicitly "continue existing").

And for the record, I only know this because I skimmed the wikipedia page on klingon yesterday. :)

Re:Oblig

[hairyfeet]

Dude you never seen Quantum leap? Nothing wrong with Bakula, it was Berman and Braga making the fecal dialog that even the Shat couldn't ham into greatness. And every God damned thing with Neelix could be summed up as "I'm an expert in that, just watch...fail fail fail", Kes....again nothing wrong with the actress, just B&B can't write anything for females that isn't "pout and stick out your tits" so they couldn't think up a damned thing for her to do except be an irritant. I mean for the love of God it was widely reported that Berman was pissed when he found out 7 of 9s cybertits were because she had just has a baby and when they went back down he just kept making the outfit tighter and tighter until Jeri Ryan practically had to be sown into the thing.

The truly sad part is Braga had a great idea to save the show, he wanted "year of hell" to be just that, a year of the crew fighting and running like they would really have to do but it was Berman that insisted that Voyager be the USS Reset Button and made everything return to the status quo every episode.

As for Harry Kim? I agree with Chuck from SFDebris that calls him "Poor dumb harry, Janeway's bitch and loser of the universe". I mean Nog went from tending a fricking bar to being actually higher ranked than poor dumb Harry in less than 18 months!

But I don't see how any Star Wars fan could say they had it worse because of Jar Jar and the prequels, because I could take watching the prequels a dozen times over VS having to watch a dozen Enterpiss episodes in a row, that show should be illegal under the Geneva convention. Not a single character in that show was even slightly likable, T' Pussy was there to show off her tits and ass while coming off as such a superbitch that only a guy into pain would ever get it up near her, Phlox was a mass murdering douchebag, Hoshi was tits and screaming at her own shadow, Merryweather was there to fondle the guns, the token black guy could be summed up as "Did you know i grew up in space?" because that was all he fucking talked about, Trip wouldn't qualify to wipe his ass, much less run engineering, and Archer? it was his job to make shitty speeches, act like a total douchenozzle to everyone, doubly so if they were right, do one Neelix level of stupid move after another, and generally make the entire federation look like a league of retards.

Frankly I'd rather have to watch the absolute worst episodes of Voyager on a loop for a month than watch even half a Enterpiss episode.

Re:Oblig

[Anonymous Coward]

Until we get to this however...

https://www.google.com/shopping/product/4898307451843488788?q=shakespeare%20in%20klingon&rlz=1C1SKPL_enUS401&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.46471029,d.cGE&biw=1270&bih=688&sa=X&ei=pzSVUc_rMsb8igKFr4D4DQ&ved=0CJABEPMCMAk

Give it some time, what once started as a one liner in a movie has now turned into a self evolving meme that is useful for those in a subgroup to have private communication. There are more people speaking klingon then there are speaking Navajo.

Re:Oblig

[Anonymous Coward]

it's quite normal in natural languages not to have a verb to be

9 out of 10

[Anonymous Coward]

9 out of 10 Klingons use Bing!!!

Re:9 out of 10

[Anonymous Coward]

Rule of Acquisition 373: Do not rush to gain profit using Google if you need profit and deniability from using Yahoo.

Re:9 out of 10

[Sponge Bath]

9 out of 10 Klingons use Bing!!!

On the internet, nobody knows you're a Ferringhi.

Re:9 out of 10

[93 Escort Wagon]

Yeah, it's pretty obvious this is Microsoft's big attempt to move into Google's core demographic.

Re:9 out of 10

[LifesABeach]

When it comes to m$_bing, I find myself uninspired. But translating Klingon? That's cool.

Re:9 out of 10

[Mashiki]

Probably a good thing, because 3 out of 4 of us are Borg.

Re:9 out of 10

[kahless62003]

jIQochbe'qu' jay'!

Re:9 out of 10

[DarkRat]

I thought it was 7 of 9

Re:9 out of 10

[poetmatt]

Hey, it's only...3, 5 years late! That's practically at the discarded tail-end of innovation!

Re:9 out of 10

[A10Mechanic]

Pity that Slashdot does not let us post pictures.

Ahhh....

[Anonymous Coward]

...I love the smell of desperation in the morning.

Don't get Scroogled!

[Anonymous Coward]

Translate your important business documents to Klingon with Bing instead of those other guys!!

Native Klingon support

[fyngyrz]

The s-meter in my SDR software has native Klingon support. It's one of the easter eggs. I'm imagining people finding it, then actually translating the s-meter readout by going to Bing. Having a little trouble with how they'll encode the input font, but I'm sure MS has it all figured out. Perhaps it's OCR.

I dunno if it's just me, because I'm wacky that way, but... lol.

Re:Native Klingon support

[tlhIngan]

The s-meter in my SDR software has native Klingon support. It's one of the easter eggs. I'm imagining people finding it, then actually translating the s-meter readout by going to Bing. Having a little trouble with how they'll encode the input font, but I'm sure MS has it all figured out. Perhaps it's OCR.

What SDR software is that?

And no, there is a romanized way of entering pIqaD (most people use the KLI version). No OCR required, other than transliterating the characters.

Re:Native Klingon support

[fyngyrz]

What SDR software is that?

SdrDx

this was entertaining

[geekoid]

10 years ago when everyone else did it.

Re:this was entertaining

[Barlo_Mung_42]

Everyone? I don't see it listed as an option in the Google translator. Who else does?

Re:this was entertaining

[CastrTroy]

Ok, so it's not on the translator, but you can visit Google's homepage in Klingon. It's not as if MS is the first company to use Klingon on the web. Although they may be the first to attempt a translator. The best thing about a Klingon translator is that almost nobody knows how well it really works.

Re:this was entertaining

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice save, dumbo

Great

[Alomex]

One more reason not to use Bing.

On a related note, in an effort to be hip Bing employees will now wear bell bottoms to the office.

Re:Great

[Anonymous Coward]

they also play old episodes of the brady bunch on 84" screens in the main foyer... what could be more hip than that!?

Re:Great

[vux984]

One more reason not to use Bing.

Because google is any different?
https://www.google.com/webhp?hl=xx-klingon

Its just a matter of time before they add klingon to their translate service.

Re:Great

[Barlo_Mung_42]

One reason not to use Bing is they added Klingon to the translator? I suspect you're full of beans and weren't going to use Bing anyway. If the Google Translator adds Klingon are you going to switch to Ask.com?

Re:Great

[Anonymous Coward]

Google added it back in April 1, 2002.

By now even the people who learned Klingon back then know that speaking Klingon was never really that cool to begin with.

I have sampled every language,

[Anonymous Coward]

Klingon is my favorite - fantastic language, especially to curse with.. Hu'tegh Ha'DIbaH petaQ bIHnuch QI'yaH!! It's like wiping your ass with a pine-cone, I love it.

Re:I have sampled every language,

[Anonymous Coward]

Thou cream-faced loon. Thou art as loathsome as a toad. Thou art a boil, a plague sore, an embossed carbuncle in my corrupted blood. Thou leathern-jerkin, crystal-button, knot-pated, agatering, puke-stocking, caddis-garter, smooth-tongue spanish pouch. Thou art the son and heir of a mongrel bitch. Away, you three inch fool.

That's some Shakespeare cursing for you.

Re:I have sampled every language,

[jamstar7]

Klingon is my favorite - fantastic language, especially to curse with.. Hu'tegh Ha'DIbaH petaQ bIHnuch QI'yaH!! It's like wiping your ass with a pine-cone, I love it.

Love the way you alluded to Matrix Reloaded.

Personally, I like John M Ford's version of Klingon, called 'klingonaase', 'the tool for the manipulation of the principle of klin'. 'Klingon' in klingonaase translates roughly to 'the one that embodies or possesses klin', aka, the 'warrior spirit'.

Re:I have sampled every language,

[93 Escort Wagon]

It's like wiping your ass with a pine-cone, I love it.

Some of us don't share this particular fetish...

Re:I have sampled every language,

[Anonymous Coward]

Pah, that's nothing until you've heard it in the original Klingon.

Re:I have sampled every language,

[Anonymous Coward]

i thought it was funny... reminded me of both matrix reloaded and ice age

20 year old geek chic

[RichMan]

In response Siri will support -
Valyrian

Re:20 year old geek chic

[Anonymous Coward]

Dothraki would be a better choice.

Re:20 year old geek chic

[MonsterTrimble]

No common tongue support? Fail.

Re:20 year old geek chic

[RabidReindeer]

Dothraki would be a better choice.

I refuse to have anything to do with it unless it supports Rlyeh'an.

Ïa! Ïa! Cthulhu ftagn!

Must test it with loneliness.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey why are my searches coming up with this fat yellow guy?

Panem et circenses

[Mister Liberty]

How does it feel being treated like a imp.

Re:Panem et circenses

[VortexCortex]

How does it feel being treated like a imp.

Shaka, when the walls fell...

Great!

[ducomputergeek]

Now I only have to be fluent in Javascript and leave Klingon to Bing!

Re:Great!

[robnator]

This is really much funier than most other comments. Sad the /. crowd missed it.

Borg?

[680x0]

I dunno... somehow Borg seems more appropriate for a Microsoft product. :-)

Re:Borg?

[Immerman]

Yeah, but the translation requires that you have a direct neural override implant installed, and the marketing team is still trying to figure out how to make that sound like a must-have feature.

Re:Borg?

[Anonymous Coward]

they should just ask apple

Re:Borg?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

and the marketing team is still trying to figure out how to make that sound like a must-have feature.

That and easy one; brainprint verification will going to be required for Windows 9 activation.

Esperanto Dating Site

[Grashnak]

Curses, my new Esperanto dating service, granda_boobs.com, will be totally upstaged!

Re:Esperanto Dating Site

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be grandaj_mamoj.com, dankon very much.

Re:Esperanto Dating Site

[Anonymous Coward]

Curses, my new Esperanto dating service, granda_boobs.com, will be totally upstaged!

I'm sure that with that domain name, you'll continue to draw a crowd.

It doesn't actually work

[MobyDisk]

The Klingon language isn't actually complete, so if it encounters a word that has no translation it just makes-up something by adding unpronounceable letters in place of real ones. Unless it starts with a capital letter at which point it knows it was a proper name. Examples:
Microsoft --> microsoft
microsoft --> mIchroSotlht
what stinks is that it isn't smart enough to reverse the process:
mIchroSotlht --> michrosokt

Re:It doesn't actually work

[excelsior_gr]

I guess it is a genuine Microsoft implementation then.

Re:It doesn't actually work

[edxwelch]

what? you mean it just makes up words from a made up language!!

Re:It doesn't actually work

[radarskiy]

-1, Uninsightful

It tried to transliterate, just like it does for any other language. So this is not evidence that Klingon is any less complete than any other language.

Re:It doesn't actually work

[pne]

Funny that it turns "f" into "tlh". I would have expected "f" to become "ng" instead and for "tlh" to arise from "x" (the "xifan hol" encoding). Ah well.

Re:It doesn't actually work

[MobyDisk]

I wasn't presenting evidence that Klingon is any less complete than any other language. That is a simple matter of fact. I was merely demonstrating the consequences of said fact.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klingon_language

Venn Diagram?

[Flere Imsaho]

Are either of the Bing users trekkies?

Re:Venn Diagram?

[Anonymous Coward]

I prefer to be called a Trekker. Steve, though, is more into Star Wars. He really liked the Abrams movie.

Re:Venn Diagram?

[Anonymous Coward]

only one of them is

Re:Venn Diagram?

[Tablizer]

Is it the black-white guy, or the white-black guy?

Re:Venn Diagram?

[GTRacer]

Dang. Posting to correct accidental downmod. Was aiming for Insightful and missed. Seriously Slashdot, why do I have to lose 5 mods because you can't leave the dropdown active?

Not again!

[Blaskowicz]

This joke was already tiring when we were submerged by it on April 2, and now Microsoft trolls slashdot by planting that damn rot13 filter and having people link to it.

so I tried it

[goffster]

but the klingon font it used does not seem to be widely circulated,
which means.... lame

Re:I suppose it's easier than improving the algori

[CRCulver]

I suppose it's easier than improving the algorithm, which is just pathetically bad at this point in time.

The algorithm is continually being improved.

In any event, it appears that the algorithm is just fine for an increasing number of people. I work in the translation field, and my fellow professionals and I have seen a significant fall in the amount of contracts companies are sending out. Sure, for manuals, advertising and other stuff meant to be seen by the general public, companies want the kind of polish that only a human being can do. But for e.g. business-internal communication within multinationals, which previously were sent to be professionally translated and would bring us a lot of money, companies would now rather put it through Google Translate for free than hire the expensive services of a translator. The quality isn't good, but it's good enough.

LOLTargs

[Sponge Bath]

I can has gagh?

Very cool.

[Anonymous Coward]

Now all 79 of the people that speak Klingon will be pleased.

And just days before the new star trek movie comes out, what a coincidence! Really though Microsoft doing this kind of stinks of a old man trying to use words like "jiggie" and "homie" in a desperate attempt to sound cool to kids show how hip they are with todays youngster trends. This is more of a google thing.

Another time-travelling Slashdot story?

[wonkey_monkey]

The timing is no coincidence; Star Trek: Into Darkness is coming out on Friday.

Awesome! Uh, except that I already saw it last Friday...

Re:Another time-travelling Slashdot story?

[Jaruzel]

As usual, /. completely ignores the fact there are populated regions of land mass elsewhere on this planet other than the American continent.

Global release dates for Into Darkness:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1408101/releaseinfo

The US are getting it late, it seems.

Re:Another time-travelling Slashdot story?

[wonkey_monkey]

The US are getting it late, it seems.

Isn't that getting to be often the way? One might naively assume it was some kind of desperate ploy to defeat piracy...

The only country that got Iron Man 3 after the USA (so far) was Poland.

Re:Another time-travelling Slashdot story?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mexico getting it before the U.S. aren't they worried about piracy...

Re:Another time-travelling Slashdot story?

[oodaloop]

Why do you go to an American website and complain that it focuses on America? If it bothers you that much, go to a website hosted in your own country.

Re:Another time-travelling Slashdot story?

[mjwx]

The timing is no coincidence; Star Trek: Into Darkness is coming out on Friday.

Awesome! Uh, except that I already saw it last Friday...

Submitter used Bing to get the release date.

Re:Another time-travelling Slashdot story?

[Jaruzel]

OK I'll bite.

US websites are the ones that end in .US. The ones that end in .org, .com, .net are GLOBAL top level domains and should not contain US centric content.

(Also, there's no tech sites worth shit for the UK because as we all know, the UK *doesn't* have a decent tech industry... :( )

Finally, wtf is wrong with you Americans that you can't accept a single negative comment aimed your country no matter how accurate? I guess tho, once you've grown up a bit, you'll be able to take constructive criticism without throwing a complete teenage strop every time.
 

Re:Another time-travelling Slashdot story?

[oodaloop]

Strange then that I've lived nearly my whole life in the US and can't remember ever going to a .us site. Slashdot is run out of the US with American editors. It uses American units and American lexicon (color instead of colour, etc). It's not going to have every unit for every country, ever release date for every movie, or every lexicon to appease the global audience. Get over it. This has nothing to do with taking criticism or behaving like a strop, whatever the fuck that is.

Re:Another time-travelling Slashdot story?

[oodaloop]

Replying again, I looked up .org in wikipedia and it says nothing about it being global. If you have a source for your statement that .org site is global and should not contain US centric content, please post it.

Re:Another time-travelling Slashdot story?

[Anonymous Coward]

Read some more! From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.org : "Registrations in the org are processed via accredited registrars worldwide. Anyone can register an org second-level domain." Can you find a source that says .org is somehow limited to the US?

Re:Another time-travelling Slashdot story?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, you're all idiots. :)

oodaloop does not seem to understand how the internet is global and how people outside of america does not give a single f*ck in which country a certain site happens to be hosted. That american english is used doesn't mean anything, it is pretty much the international language of the IT industry. And according to http://slashdotmedia.com/ :
"Slashdot Media is the global leader in professional technology communities."
"Slashdot Media has massive scale and reach to audiences in North America as well as worldwide."

Jaruzel on the other hand is obviously completely wrong about "should not contain US centric content" - a .org site can contain content centered however the f*ck it wants, but it is certainly global and available for any organisation in the world to register. And yes, slashdot is obviously written from a US perspective, like it or not.

Best I can do is a math joke

[tehlinux]

Glory to you and your Householder matrices.

Sad Microsoft wants the 1990's back

[Anonymous Coward]

His point was clear, it doesn't translate the same word the same way depending on the capitals, and its too stupid an implementation to do it two ways.

http://www.mrklingon.org/

Microsoft --> [Microsoft]
microsoft --> [microsoft]

And the two way test:
chocolate --> yuch
Reversed
yuch --> chocolate

So Microsoft's a bit sad here, this joke is old, and better done elsewhere. Sort of like their 'cartoon face' patent yesterday, when I did a check there were already 2D and 3D web cartoon face converters when they applied for the patent!

It's all a bit sad, like when your Dad tries to be cool in front of your friends.

Bing Cannot Translate Japanese

[Anonymous Coward]

True.

But then Google is only a 'little' better, and still fails !

So WTF is having 'Klingon' as useless movie inspired 'language' which is not a Language to 'be' translatable is a FUCKING JOKE.

Bloody Piss off M$.

Who gives a fuck

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that really all Bing was missing - Klingon supoort? Ia there a large demographic people seaching the internet that only speak Klingon? Good god.

OSS competitor:

[Tablizer]

http://www.wizage.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/tlhingbuntu-splash.png

iso 639-2 language code

[SonnyDog09]

There is actually a code for Klingon in the iso-639-2 Language Code table.

tlh ==> Klingon; tlhIngan-Hol klingon

See http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/php/code_list.php for the full list.

Outnerd Google?

[Andrio]

So when I saw this, I thought to myself "Oh wow, did Microsoft just out-nerd Google? I'm impressed."

But then when it was pointed out that this coincides with the latest Star Trek movie, I realized: "Oh, it's a marketing gimmick. I see."

Everything in normal.

Mission accomplished!

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Ha ha, you assholes clicked on a bing link.

Obligatory XKCD

[Anonymous Coward]

https://xkcd.com/1167/

Indeed doesn't work

[Hemi Rodner]

"Can I get a hug?" translates into "laH Hugh chaw'a'?"
and translating it back to English results to: "Breaks can he suffered him?"

Assuming, ofcourse, that this sentence is translatable. Is it?