The translation industry has evolved in recent years with its forays into technological aids such as, AI, and Machine Translation (MT); scientists have discovered a way to translate brainwaves, Google Translate is used to translate more than 100billion words each day, and neural learning machines can delve into millions of texts for fast translations in multiple languages.
So, does all this technology spell the end for the translation industry, and mean that we have finally broken the language barriers which exist as a block to communication around the world?
The short answer to this is definitely ‘No’. However, according to a recent article in The Times by Ben Macintyre, the long term answer might be ‘Yes’.
Macintyre claims that he read a “250 -page book in Russian, despite being unable to speak or understand a single word of the language. Thanks to the technological miracle that is machine translation (MT), I simply uploaded a digital copy of the book in Cyrillic into one of the free online translation sites and out spat a version in English: a jolting, imperfect, grammatically dodgy version, but entirely comprehensible. It was like reading with a bilingual nine-year-old”.
He goes on to state that “the language barriers that have divided humans since the dawn of speech have not fallen but they are being breached at an astonishing rate”.
While many of us welcome the advances made by technology, and its ability to assist with translation and global communication, there are some distinct downsides which should be considered before we leap into the AI Machine Translation abyss.
Lost Languages
The implications for global communication at first glance may appear to have limited negative consequences, however, if we consider the emergence of a ‘global language’, one which we can all speak and understand, we must also consider what will happen to our native languages, especially those which only have a few million speakers, or which are already at risk of dying out.
An ‘automated multilingualism’, as Macintyre called it, may well signal the end of regional dialects, culturally based legends, and histories, and national identities. Even today there are an estimated 3500 languages which are in danger of extinction within this century. We lose one language every two weeks at present.
The long-term consequences of lost languages includes a loss of knowledge that may otherwise never be regained. For example, in the Andes and the Amazon there are tribes who have their own secret language, used mainly for preserving knowledge of medicinal plants, some of which were previously unknown to science. The loss of this language may also equate to a loss of knowledge.
Cultural Languages
Human speech, no matter the language, is littered with cultural references, idioms, phrases, nuance, humour, and even sarcasm, which can be difficult for some humans to grasp, let alone AI.
Machine Translation struggles to replicate and understand the depth of human speech, and this can lead to misunderstanding, causing offence, or confusion, as Hilary Clinton discovered when she gave a gift to the Russian foreign minister accompanied by a note that should have read ’reset’ but in fact was translated into ‘overcharge’!
Language is intimately linked to our cultural identity, it helps us create a sense of who we are, where we are from, and how we view the world. Human interpreters translate not only the words on a page, but also the sense of words in order to convey an accurate message to readers or listeners.
The translation of literary texts, especially those set in an historical context, is a field in which human translation is vital in order to preserve the original meaning and context. AI is not yet ready to cope with translating the meaning behind the words.
There are, of course, many benefits which come from MT and AI; learning a new language is made far easier by using translation tools which can help you to communicate with people who speak a foreign language, while the speed with which a translator can translate standard texts into multiple languages is becoming faster by the day with use of translation glossaries and Machine Translation tools.
However, the preservation of languages should be a priority for their ability to inform us of accumulated knowledge, bygone cultures, and past people.
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