September 7, 2007 at 03:20Essays: The End of the Language Barrier
- Transfer
Posted by Brian McConnell
The original of this article is published in English. As an experiment, I invited people to translate this article into as many languages as possible.
You can contribute by clicking on your language (you will see a list of languages under the heading).
If your language is not in the list, change the list of preferred languages in the browser settings by adding your language there.
In addition, you can watch, create and share translations at www.worldwidelexicon.org.
Arthur Charles Clark once predicted that the world would become one in 2001.
And he did.
High-speed air travel, another popular topic of science fiction, has become so commonplace that we complain that we get drinks for a long time while crossing the oceans.
Memex, the electronic directory of global knowledge described by Vannevar Bush, has become a reality, embodied in the modern Web.
The world has shrunk to the size of a room.
Language is the only remaining barrier.
The language barrier, as we know, will be overcome in 2010.
Computer scientists have been searching for the Holy Grail of artificial intelligence for decades, but people, not cars, will make the breakthrough that removes the language barrier.
Language, like music and painting, requires a person to understand his essence.
This is an ambitious prediction, I know, but all the prerequisites necessary for this are already there.
The language barrier will not be broken by one powerful attack, but by many light blows that will allow thoughts to easily overcome cross-cultural barriers.
The low cost of publication, the wide Internet channels and the power of huge social networks with millions of users allow us to create organizations for the global “human-computing structure” aimed at various tasks.
Translation of the text - what is not the goal to begin with?
The Worldwide Lexicon, a project I have been working on for many years, has recently released several tools for collaborative website translation.
These open source tools can be implemented in most popular publishing systems and can be adapted to various fields of use.
Publishing tools show a list of languages under each heading.
Click on the language and you will see the latest translation published by other readers and an offer to contribute to the translation.
WWL is based on several key points.
A site with multiple readers is likely to have bilingual users.
The loyal readers form strong, permanent groups around what is being discussed, whether it be railroad models or Paris Hilton.
For the most part, they are well-versed in the matter under discussion, and some will be happy to devote time to translating the texts so that others can also read them.
People who just want to read will not be required to do anything new.
They simply find the page, or follow the link and read what they find.
Translated documents will be visible in other languages, both for people and for search engines.
This will greatly expand the scope of information discovery, as a large sector of the web will suddenly become visible in many languages.
Amateur bloggers and professional writers will also be able to pay people to publish translations using this system, which allows you to combine voluntary and commercial translation.
The language barrier will be broken in a few simple steps.
The first phase of this transaction will be committed by publishers owning large or well-motivated masses.
Early adopters will appreciate the opportunity to make their content available in many languages, and their readers will be happy to help them.
Each website will assemble its own community of translators from its readers.
At this stage of the transaction, the system will be powered by several publishers and possibly several thousand dedicated translators.
These projects will grow, and multilingual publishing systems will become increasingly sophisticated.
Sites will acquire large communities of translators who will decide what to translate, depending on personal interests, and regardless of publisher activity.
Wandering crowds of amateur translators will translate anything they find interesting.
Commercial services will appear, supplementing the system based on volunteers.
Translator communities will decide for themselves what needs translation.
The motivation of people to translate will be their own interest, or desire to help friends and family.
It will be interesting to know which content will be the most translated, as well as which works of one culture will be interesting to others.
It will also be a very useful “measure of interest”, because these systems will measure the amount of work done on each text and calculate the cost of each user.
When a large mass of people voluntarily translate the text for a small fee or for free, this will signal that the text, whatever it is, is interesting.
At some point, everyone will notice that the web translates on its own.
They will see popular sites showing articles in different languages.
They will find translations of texts when they search for something, or follow a link.
This will lead even more bilingual people to the system and increase its possibility for further translation.
Throughout time, the collection of translations will increase and become more interconnected.
The final stage in the development of a multilingual web will be a world where amateur bloggers and professional publishers can be translated if they want, and where readers can search and read articles in other languages as easily as in their native language.
Most readers will not think about how this happens, and who is behind these translations.
They will simply surf the web, as they do today, they will only be able to do this with all existing articles, and not just those written in their language.
When this happens, the language barrier, at least in one-to-many communication, will become the past.
It is likely that this transition will happen soon, because multilingual sites will benefit from various network effects (being available in many languages they will attract a large audience and bring more people to the system)
WWL-like systems will solve the difficult problem of combining people and computers to take advantage of strengths each (computers are powerful in processing large amounts of information, while people are able to understand the nuances of human languages).
Now broadband Internet is available everywhere, in all regions, so such a system will be leaked to every corner of the world in a short time.
In fact, one week after the release of our latest tool at the end of August, WWL gathered users from over ninety countries who spoke more than forty-five languages.
Although the technology underlying the system is simple, the end of the language barrier will have far-reaching consequences.
When people can read the text written in Farsi as easily as in Japanese, they can see the world and other cultures in ways inaccessible today.
About the Worldwide Lexicon: WWL is an open source project whose goal is to make collaborative translations accessible and easy to use.
We are developing extensions to popular publishing systems, open development libraries and other tools for implementation in a wide range of web services.
WWL is free and can be adapted for any non-commercial or commercial use.
Visit www.worldwidelexicon.org for more information.
The original of this article is published in English. As an experiment, I invited people to translate this article into as many languages as possible.
You can contribute by clicking on your language (you will see a list of languages under the heading).
If your language is not in the list, change the list of preferred languages in the browser settings by adding your language there.
In addition, you can watch, create and share translations at www.worldwidelexicon.org.
Arthur Charles Clark once predicted that the world would become one in 2001.
And he did.
High-speed air travel, another popular topic of science fiction, has become so commonplace that we complain that we get drinks for a long time while crossing the oceans.
Memex, the electronic directory of global knowledge described by Vannevar Bush, has become a reality, embodied in the modern Web.
The world has shrunk to the size of a room.
Language is the only remaining barrier.
The language barrier, as we know, will be overcome in 2010.
Computer scientists have been searching for the Holy Grail of artificial intelligence for decades, but people, not cars, will make the breakthrough that removes the language barrier.
Language, like music and painting, requires a person to understand his essence.
This is an ambitious prediction, I know, but all the prerequisites necessary for this are already there.
The language barrier will not be broken by one powerful attack, but by many light blows that will allow thoughts to easily overcome cross-cultural barriers.
The low cost of publication, the wide Internet channels and the power of huge social networks with millions of users allow us to create organizations for the global “human-computing structure” aimed at various tasks.
Translation of the text - what is not the goal to begin with?
The Worldwide Lexicon, a project I have been working on for many years, has recently released several tools for collaborative website translation.
These open source tools can be implemented in most popular publishing systems and can be adapted to various fields of use.
Publishing tools show a list of languages under each heading.
Click on the language and you will see the latest translation published by other readers and an offer to contribute to the translation.
WWL is based on several key points.
A site with multiple readers is likely to have bilingual users.
The loyal readers form strong, permanent groups around what is being discussed, whether it be railroad models or Paris Hilton.
For the most part, they are well-versed in the matter under discussion, and some will be happy to devote time to translating the texts so that others can also read them.
People who just want to read will not be required to do anything new.
They simply find the page, or follow the link and read what they find.
Translated documents will be visible in other languages, both for people and for search engines.
This will greatly expand the scope of information discovery, as a large sector of the web will suddenly become visible in many languages.
Amateur bloggers and professional writers will also be able to pay people to publish translations using this system, which allows you to combine voluntary and commercial translation.
The language barrier will be broken in a few simple steps.
The first phase of this transaction will be committed by publishers owning large or well-motivated masses.
Early adopters will appreciate the opportunity to make their content available in many languages, and their readers will be happy to help them.
Each website will assemble its own community of translators from its readers.
At this stage of the transaction, the system will be powered by several publishers and possibly several thousand dedicated translators.
These projects will grow, and multilingual publishing systems will become increasingly sophisticated.
Sites will acquire large communities of translators who will decide what to translate, depending on personal interests, and regardless of publisher activity.
Wandering crowds of amateur translators will translate anything they find interesting.
Commercial services will appear, supplementing the system based on volunteers.
Translator communities will decide for themselves what needs translation.
The motivation of people to translate will be their own interest, or desire to help friends and family.
It will be interesting to know which content will be the most translated, as well as which works of one culture will be interesting to others.
It will also be a very useful “measure of interest”, because these systems will measure the amount of work done on each text and calculate the cost of each user.
When a large mass of people voluntarily translate the text for a small fee or for free, this will signal that the text, whatever it is, is interesting.
At some point, everyone will notice that the web translates on its own.
They will see popular sites showing articles in different languages.
They will find translations of texts when they search for something, or follow a link.
This will lead even more bilingual people to the system and increase its possibility for further translation.
Throughout time, the collection of translations will increase and become more interconnected.
The final stage in the development of a multilingual web will be a world where amateur bloggers and professional publishers can be translated if they want, and where readers can search and read articles in other languages as easily as in their native language.
Most readers will not think about how this happens, and who is behind these translations.
They will simply surf the web, as they do today, they will only be able to do this with all existing articles, and not just those written in their language.
When this happens, the language barrier, at least in one-to-many communication, will become the past.
It is likely that this transition will happen soon, because multilingual sites will benefit from various network effects (being available in many languages they will attract a large audience and bring more people to the system)
WWL-like systems will solve the difficult problem of combining people and computers to take advantage of strengths each (computers are powerful in processing large amounts of information, while people are able to understand the nuances of human languages).
Now broadband Internet is available everywhere, in all regions, so such a system will be leaked to every corner of the world in a short time.
In fact, one week after the release of our latest tool at the end of August, WWL gathered users from over ninety countries who spoke more than forty-five languages.
Although the technology underlying the system is simple, the end of the language barrier will have far-reaching consequences.
When people can read the text written in Farsi as easily as in Japanese, they can see the world and other cultures in ways inaccessible today.
About the Worldwide Lexicon: WWL is an open source project whose goal is to make collaborative translations accessible and easy to use.
We are developing extensions to popular publishing systems, open development libraries and other tools for implementation in a wide range of web services.
WWL is free and can be adapted for any non-commercial or commercial use.
Visit www.worldwidelexicon.org for more information.