tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6748877443699290050.post7670788386728121011..comments2024-03-27T23:43:31.674-07:00Comments on eMpTy Pages: Using Translation as a Force to Address Information Poverty: AGIS 2010Kirti Vasheehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16795076802721564830noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6748877443699290050.post-36238673838593479632011-01-18T01:15:58.242-08:002011-01-18T01:15:58.242-08:00The largest translation project in the world !
ht...The largest translation project in the world !<br /><br />http://www.globalwatchtower.com/2011/01/13/asia-online-thai-wikipedia/Kirti Vasheehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16795076802721564830noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6748877443699290050.post-36249207020844053382011-01-05T14:45:47.768-08:002011-01-05T14:45:47.768-08:00I was alerted to this wonderful blog entry by Geor...I was alerted to this wonderful blog entry by George Weyman who regaled us with his flute playing in Ireland at the last AGIS conference. <br /><br />Translation as Means of Increasing Intellectual Production in the Middle East | Meedan Blog http://t.co/F1j5ZQi<br /><br />Some excerpts from this blog:<br /><br />"Translation is a pressing duty of those interested in increasing access to knowledge around the world. Societies are not going to learn English en masse at a rate capable of checking these growing knowledge imbalances. Instead, we need methods for scaling translation.<br /><br />The other issue is to do with the value of translation itself. It would be a reasonable premise to suggest that in periods of high intellectual activity, societies invest in translation. Why? There is evidence to suggest that access to diverse perspectives enables better intellectual outputs.<br /><br />....access to diverse networks and forms of knowledge improves our ability to innovate.<br /><br />Translation increases network diversity and it reduces knowledge divides.<br /><br />Translation today can be conducted cheaply and to high quality by a combination of machines and humans. Automated translation can provide a first draft which can be edited by one or many individual translators working together on small chunks of text – much like a Wikipedia page entry. Translation revisions show the lineage of the translation, and help alert moderators to problems or vandalism. And the fun part is that each translation contributes to the improvement of the automated translation – so you can continually translate more, and better. The humans focus increasingly on the really hard bits.<br /><br />The list of organizations working on this model is wide, and Meedan is in the thick of it. If we want to make the web more polyglot, and increase the amount of Arabic content in the next ten years, we need to put energy into the tools to make scaled social translation a natural and intuitive publishing gesture on the web. This is not to suggest that professional translators are going to be out of a job any time soon – quite the reverse, the more we translate content the more demand there will be for the services of translators with real expertise for the most difficult translation problems. But respect for the translation profession should not be a straitjacket into which we put the vision of a polyglot web."<br /><br />And just in case you still have doubts about the value of the AGIS mission. Consider the following facts:<br /><br />There are 250 million Arabic speakers in the world, but only a very small proportion of translated foreign material available to read.<br /><br />To put this into context:<br />-- Spain translates in one year the number of books that have been translated into Arabic in the past 1000 years and<br /> -- For every one million Arabs only one book is translated into Arabic each year<br /><br />(Source: UNDP Arab Human Development Report, 2003)Kirti Vasheehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16795076802721564830noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6748877443699290050.post-65636792623178465032010-12-20T17:20:00.219-08:002010-12-20T17:20:00.219-08:00Thanks, Vashee, for sharing. I'm confident tha...Thanks, Vashee, for sharing. I'm confident that the fast growing information need around the world will create a new category of translators that will take from making information widely available the thrill professionals take from their jobs. The usefulness of translations will take priority over the well written translation because the good enough translation that, bring down the number of death from diarrhea, will have more value. The value will be in making a difference in people's life. Congratulations on the Thai Wikipedia. Wonderful project!Monica Oliveiranoreply@blogger.com