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words are all that matter
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| Translate at your own risk |
[07 Jan 2010|11:18pm] |
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http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1999 Last month I posted a link to a Schott's Vocab Q&A with Claude Hagège on endangered languages. Some commenters immediately picked up on one of Hagège's statements about translation:
However, there exists an important activity which clearly shows that even though the ways languages grasp the world may vary widely from one language to another, they all build, in fact, the same contents, and equivalent conceptions of the world. This activity is translation. Any text in any language can be translated into a text in another language. These two texts express the same meaning. We can therefore conclude that despite the differences between the ways languages grasp the world, all languages are easily convertible into one another, because humans interpret the world along the same, or comparable, semantic lines.
Barbara Partee contributed this comment:
Emmon Bach has put it nicely: The best argument in favor of the universality of natural language expressive power is the possibility of translation. The best argument against universality is the impossibility of translation (i.e. that we often can't really translate exactly). [link added–EB]
Translation ain't easy, even for skilled humans — and (especially) for machines. Google Translate appears to be among the better tools out there, but as the comments section of what (I believe) was Language Log's first reference to Google's translation tool shows, you can have quite a bit of fun breaking it. Moreover, breaking it is easy and can happen completely inadvertently, a lesson that (from what I hear, anyway) is quite often learned too late by desperate students trying to take shortcuts while doing their homeworks for beginning language classes.
Almost exactly a year after that Language Log post, Google Mail added an automatic message translation tool as a Gmail Labs setting. I enabled the tool in my Gmail account and noticed that it easily recognizes every message written in Spanish that I receive from members of my family, suggesting that I translate the message from Spanish to English (and offering drop-down menus with other languages in case it had made the wrong guess, or in case I want to play around). So every once in a while I click on the "Translate message" link and casually examine the results.
Most of the time the translation is imperfect, but the gist of the original appears to be there. A couple of months ago, though, one of my aunts sent a message to several family members on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of my grandmother's (my aunt's mother) death. The most dramatic mistranslation was of the closing line, in which my aunt addresses her mother directly:
tu hija que te quiso tanto, tanto y no supo demostrarlo - PERDONAME.
Which I would translate as:
your daugher who loved you so, so much and didn't know how to show it — FORGIVE ME.
But which Google translated as:
you wanted your daughter so much and failed to prove it - Perdoname.
Some of this mistranslation is probably due to some systematic ambiguities. The verb "querer" in Spanish, represented in the original by the third person perfect form "quiso", does in fact mean both "to want" and "to love". Likewise, "demostrar" means both "to show" and "to prove", just as "to demonstrate" (or even "to show") does in English. Finally, the "tu" at the beginning is ambiguous between "you" and "your" (putting aside the negligible fact that "you" should be spelled "tú", with an acute accent). Throw all those together, shake it up a little, and produce an intelligible English sentence, and the Google translation is at the very least a possible outcome. But I got interested in the fact that the all-caps "PERDONAME", meaning "FORGIVE ME", was left untranslated (though it was changed to the initial-caps-only "Perdoname"). So I changed it to lower case and ran it through again.
tu hija que te quiso tanto, tanto y no supo demostrarlo - perdoname.
you wanted your daughter so much and failed to prove it - pardon me.
Now Google translated the word, but again an ambiguity interfered: "perdonar" does in fact mean "to forgive" as well as "to pardon" in the more mundane sense (much as both of these English verbs are technically also ambiguous in the same way). But then I wondered about how other manipulations of case might affect the translation. First, all-caps for everything:
TU HIJA QUE TE QUISO TANTO, TANTO Y NO SUPO DEMOSTRARLO - PERDONAME.
YOUR DAUGHTER THAT YOU WANTED SO MUCH AND KNEW NO SHOW - Perdoname.
Not sure why that would change the first clause into a noun phrase with a relative clause — nor how "KNEW NO SHOW" popped in there. Next, sentence-initial punctuation only:
Tu hija que te quiso tanto, tanto y no supo demostrarlo - perdoname.
Your daughter who loved you so much and she could not prove it - pardon me.
That did it! The right gist is there, even though the redundant "she" makes it somewhat less than perfect.
I was still interested, though, in how the manipulation of something as relatively meaningless as case could affect the translation so much. So I picked another relatively meaningless part of the original: because "tanto, tanto" was simply being translated as "so much" rather than "so, so much", I simplified it to just "tanto". Here are the results:
tu hija que te quiso tanto y no supo demostrarlo - PERDONAME.
your daughter that you loved so much and she could not prove it - Perdoname.
tu hija que te quiso tanto y no supo demostrarlo - perdoname.
your daughter that you loved so much and she could not prove it - pardon me.
TU HIJA QUE TE QUISO TANTO Y NO SUPO DEMOSTRARLO - PERDONAME.
YOUR DAUGHTER THAT YOU WANTED TO SHOW BOTH and did not know - Perdoname.
Tu hija que te quiso tanto y no supo demostrarlo - perdoname.
Your daughter who loved you so much and failed to prove it - pardon me.
In my estimation, that last one is probably the best of all of the Google translations: the redundant "she" is gone, which more than makes up for the harsher sense of "failed" instead of "could not".
I don't pretend to know anything about Google's translation algorithm(s), but I do find it interesting that what seem like very minor manipulations like those shown above can lead to both bizzarely different results as well as to subtle improvements.
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| Cabal Television |
[07 Jan 2010|09:04pm] |
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http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2031 (Tip of the hat to Rubrik for the title.)
OK, I'm in room Key 5 (I guess that's Francis Scott Key) at the Baltimore Hilton, where the LSA symposium "Medialingual: Representing Language in Film and Television", organized by Walt Wolfram, is just getting started.
Here's Walt's Intro, from the meeting handbook:
This symposium considers the role of the media in the public presentation of language issues. As a field, linguistics lags behind other social and natural sciences in the presentation of a public image through the media. Although there are a number of linguistic issues that might be chosen for public media presentation, this symposium focuses on issues of language and society, in particular, on language change, language variation, language endangerment, and language preservation and documentation. How do we present our research for formal and informal public education? How do we balance our technical expertise with an authentic portrayal of the language communities which we have engaged in our research? And how do we present important issues about the social life of language in a way that is appealing to the public interest, factually faithful, and authentically representative? Each of the participants in this symposium has been actively engaged in media productions that have led to local, regional, and national media portrayals receiving considerable attention and positive reception by the general public and/or particular language communities. Media venues presented and discussed range from documentaries produced for film festivals, museum exhibitions, and public television, to curriculum materials used in revitalization, preservation, and formal educational programs. Formats range from real-life filming to simulated models and animation. The unique presentation format of the symposium allows each participant to present a body of illustrative vignettes from their productions as well as to discuss their rationale for the presentation format and production process.
The first segment features David Harrison, who is showing a trailer for The Linguists, and a passage from the film, and will then talk about some related things. I might have to leave about 5:00, unfortunately, so David's discussion might be the last part of this session that I get to see.
David showed the segments from the film that take place in Siberia and in Arizona.
He's talking about how he started the project five years before the result was released. For him, the PR aspect of the movie was partly a recruiting tool for undergraduate courses… He cites a bunch of firsts (the first NSF-funded film premiered at Sundance, for example).
The seven most popular questions he's been asked at screenings:
What's the difference between a language and a dialect?
Do different languages imply different world views?
Is it really worthwhile to save an endangered language?
Is it possible to bring an endangered language back?
Are there many people doing this kind of work? How do I get trained to do it?
What's happened to the various characters?
He discusses the motivations and the reactions of the speakers featured in the film.
A criticism: The movie is too fast-paced, it telescopes large-scale and long-term projects and makes them seem like a quick drop-in interaction. David: this is valid, but …
Another: the film recapitulates "discourses of colonialism" by showing two white male linguists in control of interactions with indigenous people. David: "I look forward to similar efforts from native speakers of endangered languages" — he points to a recent work called When it's gone, it's gone.
(Note that you can buy a copy of the movie on DVD for $30.)
The second speaker is Ashley Stinnett from Arizona, who is showing some clips from a film in progress called Voyagers on the Ring of Fire, about the colonization of the Pacific. One of the clips shows a sort of video-documented Swadesh word list from speakers in different parts of the islands of Sumba, Flores, and Nias. She shows two different versions of this clip, the second one with much more background video, more explanatory voice-overs, etc., including discussion of combining linguistic and genetic data. The second clip also has more ethnographic and historical material, and some segments showing how the team introduced themselves to the people in a new area.
Based on these short samples, this is going to be a terrific movie. Unfortunately, at this point I need to leave for a scheduled meeting!
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| Hypothesis A/Hypothesis B |
[07 Jan 2010|08:44pm] |
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http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2030  The book Hypothesis A/Hypothesis B: Linguistic Explorations in Honor of David M. Perlmutter, edited by Donna Gerdts, John Moore, and Maria Polinsky, has just been published by MIT Press. According to the book blurb:
Anyone who has studied linguistics in the last half-century has been affected by the work of David Perlmutter. One of the era's most versatile linguists, he is perhaps best known as the founder (with Paul Postal) of Relational Grammar, but he has also made contributions to areas ranging from theoretical morphology to sign language phonology. Hypothesis A/Hypothesis B (the title evokes Perlmutter's characteristic style of linguistic argumentation) offers twenty-three essays by Perlmutter’s colleagues and former students.
Many of the contributions deal with the study of the world's languages (including Indo-European languages, sign language, and languages of the Americas), reflecting the influence of Perlmutter's cross-linguistic research and meticulous analysis of empirical data. Other topics include grammatical relations and their mapping; unaccusatives, impersonals, and the like; complex verbs, complex clauses, and Wh-constructions; and the nature of sign language. Perlmutter, currently Professor Emeritus at the University of California, San Diego, and still actively engaged in the field, opens the volume with the illuminating and entertaining essay, "My Path in Linguistics."
Follow that link at the end — the chapter is available as a free sample. And if you're at the secret cabal, stop by the MIT Press stall at the book exhibit and get yourself a copy.
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| From the Vault: a convenient literary metaphor |
[07 Jan 2010|10:23am] |
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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/wwdn/~3/Fzn_iBzgtcg/from-the-vault-a-convenient-literary-metaphor.html This was originally written in 2003, after I'd published Dancing Barefoot , and was still working on Just A Geek. At the time, I wasn't sure if I was a writer, an actor, or some combination of the two, though I was trying very hard to convince myself (and the Voice of Self Doubt) that I was just going to be a writer.
I enjoyed writing narrative nonfiction, and the feedback I got from my narrative nonfiction work was overwhelmingly positive, but it was (and is) very important to me to be a fiction writer. I had some ideas for short stories, but I just couldn't overcome my self-consciousness long enough to turn the ideas into anything more. It was frustrating to me, so I went to Old Town, determined to get some kind of narrative story out of the experience.
I still haven't written the short stories I was trying to create back then, but I think that what I did write that day has a clear narrative voice and holds up rather well.
"Can I get food at the bar?" I ask.
"Of course!"
"Thanks," I say, and take a seat.
The waitress working the bar appears to be about the same age as me, in stark contrast to the other girls who look like they're all in their early 20s. There are heavy bags beneath her tired and sad eyes.
"What can I get you?" she asks.
"A Guinness and a cheeseburger," I say.
She turns, and pours me a pint. It's still settling when she puts it in front of me.
"Not many people drink Guinness in the middle of the day," she says.
"Is that a fact?" I say. In my mind I'm Sam Spade or Phillip Marlowe, and I'm in a 1920s Hollywood speakeasy.
"It is," she says, "I think this is the only pint I've poured all day.
"Well, I don't like to drink beer I can see through," I say, as I lift the now-settled glass to my lips.
Her laugh doesn't make it to her eyes, but it's still friendly. I find a kindred spirit in her sadness. We're both in a place we didn't expect to be. I bet I'm the first guy she's waited on all day who hasn't stared at her skimpy outfit while talking to her.
"Hey, honey, can we get another pitcher of Bud over here?" calls a guy in a George Zimmer signature suit at the corner of the bar. His tie is loose and he bounces his leg on the rail. It shakes under my foot. I don't like that at all.
I look around the restaurant. I've never seen it this full during the day. John Fogerty tells me that there's a bad moon on the rise.
"Sure," she says, and walks down to the taps.
Two young girls turn heads as they walk in and sit at a table behind me. "Oh my god! Your eyebrows look so great!" the tall one says.
"Don't they? I totally had them tattoo'd on," she says.
I tune them out and count the rings down my glass: one . . . two . . . three.
Four.
I look down the bar and see Men's Wearhouse and his business partners putting their best midlife crisis moves on the waitress -- my waitress. Brown Suit stares at her chest while Blue Suit flashes a capped smile at her. She giggles and fusses with her hair, and fills their glasses.
"Hurry back!" Brown Suit says, as she walks back up the bar.
Five. I stare at the top of my beer. It looks like clouds over a black sky.
"So what do you do?" she asks.
" . . . I guess I'm a writer."
"You guess you are, or you are?"
"I am. I'm blocked today."
"By what?"
"The Bogeyman."
"What's that?"
"A convenient literary metaphor."
"You are a writer."
I laugh. "Yeah, I guess I am."
"Have you written anything I've read?" she asks. A loaded question.
"Probably not," I say, "I wrote one, and the people who read it seem to like it, and I'm working on another one."
"But you're blocked today," she says.
"Yeah. This place is sort of involved in my career choice, so I thought I'd come here and try to break the block."
"How's that working out for you?" she asks. A flicker of mirth passes her eyes.
"Well, at the very least, I'll get a Guinness out of the deal."
 
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| the weight is the gift |
[06 Jan 2010|02:18pm] |
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http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2010/01/the-weight-is-the-gift.html I can't say anything specific about the job, but I got to be a voice actor again today, working with people I love, on a show that I love.
While we were all in the booth together between acts, waiting to hear from the director about our pickups, I took a moment to look around and appreciate where I was, who I was working with, and what I was working on.
I talked a little bit about truly appreciating things a little bit on this week's Radio Free Burrito. My biggest regret from my years on TNG is that I was too young and immature to truly and fully appreciate how lucky I was to work with such wonderful people, even though I was able to enjoy it while I was there. I guess the only way to unlock the "appreciate" ability is by leveling up your Wisdom attribute, in other words.
In my life experience, I've come to believe that enjoying something and appreciating something each involve a sense of gratitude, but when you put both feelings together, you end up with something that is greater than the sum of its individual parts. The two don't go hand-in-hand unless you actively make the effort, but when you do ... well, you end up having a day like today, where I enjoyed working with wonderful people while creating a fantastic characters, and I also appreciated the opportunity to be there. |
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