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Microsoft Translator Now Supports Yucatec Maya and Querétaro Otomi Language
First time accepted submitter BrianFagioli writes So, just how rare are these two languages? The Yucatec Maya language is spoken by less than 800,000 people, while the Querétaro Otomi is spoken by about 33,000. These are extremely low numbers in the grand scheme of things, which increases the risk of the languages dying out altogether. With that said, Microsoft's support of the languages in its translator software will essentially preserve it for posterity. Even if the languages end up fading away from actual use, it should live digitally forever.
"Why did Microsoft take away the start menu in Windows 8? Metro is worse than bat shit."
No one will be able to tell if the translation is valid or not.
This is as painful to read as SMS-speak in english.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Obligatory Futurama reference.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Mix ba'al.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
To Serve Man?
Submitter can't into English.
Kaspersky lab has identified a critical vulnurability in the translator . One exploited the attackers can replace everyday use words with obscene words like fetituka and kgrojhyakta which could make people speaking these languages chop off each others heads .
1 It also does Klingon.
2. There does not seem to be a word in Yucatec Maya for quark.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Some meanings are lost in translation because the target language has no analog to what you're trying to say. Not even the best interpreters can work around this problem when it occurs in some cases.
That said, I highly doubt a computer program could either.
Then I also have Watfor compiler and ChiWriter in 5.5 inch floppy disks. I have my grad student work at UT in a unix mini tape. I also have some IOmega 100 MB disks. In my basement somewhere I have the backups of my WindowsNT machine in 3.5 inch floppy disks. All of them are digital. All of them are as dead as any corpse buried in a cemetery.
This is Microsoft we are talking about. I am seriously thinking of buying a new desktop because pretty soon I won't be able to buy a new Windows7 machine. Google will keep it in beta forever. Microsoft will slap a new version number of end of life it in 10 years.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
What about Zapoteco, Nahuatl, Huichol, Sioux, Navajo, and the dozens of other native American languages? Our continent has had a rich history of cultures and languages, perhaps the most diverse in human history! FWIW, my niece is named after a Mayan goddess, Ixquic and my brother-in-law's ashes are interred in the Zapotec capital of Monte Alban in Oaxaca, Mexico and the largest boulevard in the city is named for him now. Also, my niece's husband is from Queretaro. I don't know if he speaks Otomi, but it is possible. I'll have to send him a link to this article.
Mexico is a culturally rich and diverse land. I have always loved my time spent there (first visit in 1955). I have a sister-in-law who is a bruja/curandera (a witch/healer also from Queretaro), extended family with a Mescal still in Oaxaca for 4 generations, a brother-in-law who was at one time head of the electrical engineering department at La Universidad Politechnico de Mexico - Mexico's MIT, a sister-in-law who is a retired Catholic nun, another sister-in-law who is a professor of chemical engineering at the Technical University of Oaxaca, and more than I can express. What I am so clumsily trying to say, is that all of these languages, and cultural history, if possible, should be saved. Huichol is still spoken in eastern Mexico, and Zapotec in Oaxaca. These are important languages and cultures. If we can save them, we should.
Still doesn't do Quechua, which is spoken by over 14 million people.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
I wonder if we can now translate that Mel Gibson movie about the Maya?
Seriously though, adding another language with a completely different structure will force them to improve their translation engine. I find it interesting.
A.
MS's translator is generally good, I like using it on my phone, the camera translation is a particularly nice feature, but the one language which I'm constantly having to go to google for translations is latin. Why won't they add it in? For a lot of educated disciplines, science, law, latin is a used, and sometimes it's helpful for some decent translating.
This is actually much better than I expected. I'll have to (shudder) give Microsoft due credit!
Kush awo'tan, wen lek te k'op Yucatec.
Translating the top 10 most common languages between each other is the most useful. Anything beyond that is window dressing.
Quickly checking on wikipedia, how about the 11th (German)? 18th (French)...?
"Top ten" is a ridiculously arbitrary cut off point.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I'll have to (shudder) give Microsoft due credit!
You must be new here.
First rule of slashdot club is: you never give credit to Microsoft.
I don't think there are any more rules.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Well. much more its a bit surprised by the taakbesik of translation.
That was supposed to say "I agree. I'm more than a little surprised by the quality of that translation." Oh well, back to business as usual.
I'd also like to add in that the Maya here was "Ma'alo'ob. Ya'ab in más u jump ' íit sorprendido tumen le táakbesik ' u ' le traducción '. " -- the "más" looks like embedded Spanish, so (perhaps unsurprisingly) it seems like their translations are going via Spanish. In fact, you can switch to Yucatec Maya, and write entire sentences in Spanish that will be translated to English (conozco más gente que tú -> I know more people than you) which confirms this (although if you accidentally hit a word with a valid mean in Yucatec, it does get confused). I would suggest that the most likely reason for the GP round-trip translation to be so good is that the generated Yucatec was really just glossed Spanish -- one of the easiest languages there is for translation to/from English.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Simple explanation: someone publishes or delivers a bunch of texts. The computers can churn through them with no further human input to create a crappy translation engine at next to no cost. Newspapers report "wonderful" work MS/Google/whoever is doing to "preserve" the world's languages. It's cheaper than a page in the Times, and has a potentially much bigger reach.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Way to miss my point. If the system sits there and is useful for the top ten then it wins. If its useful for dead languages that no one really speaks anymore... then its useless. Do you need to translate your words into and out of Mayan?
No?
What was that? I didn't quite understand what you said...
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Yes because with mass market products its all about minority appeal... oh wait, no it isn't.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
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