[Summary]
The development of electronic commerce boosted language
translation software, products and services targeting the general
public, language professionals, and companies localizing their
websites. The software, products and services were developed for
example by Alis Technologies, Globalink, Lernout & Hauspie,
Softissimo and IBM. In March 2001, IBM embarked on a growing
translation market with a high-end professional product, the
WebSphere Translation Server. The software could instantly
translate webpages, emails and chats from/into several languages
(Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean,
Spanish). It could process 500 words per second and add
terminology to the software. Computer-assisted translation (CAT)
software were developed for professional translators, based on
“translation memory” with terminology processing in real time, for
example Wordfast, created in 1999 by Yves Champollion. Worldfast
could be used on any platform (Windows, Mac, Linux), and was
compatible with the software of other key players like IBM and SDL
Trados.
***
The development of electronic commerce boosted language
translation software, products and services targeting the general
public, language professionals, and companies localizing their
websites.
The software, products and services were developed for example by
Alis Technologies, Globalink, Lernout & Hauspie, Softissimo and
IBM.
In March 2001, IBM embarked on a growing translation market with a
high-end professional product, the WebSphere Translation Server.
The software could instantly translate webpages, emails and chats
from/into several languages (Chinese, English, French, German,
Italian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish). It could process 500 words
per second and add terminology to the software.
Machine translation can be defined as the automated process of
translating a text from one language to another language. MT
analyzes the text in the source language and automatically
generates the corresponding text in the target language. With the
lack of human intervention during the translation process, machine
translation differs from computer-assisted translation (CAT),
based on interaction between the translator and the computer.
Computer-assisted translation (CAT) software were developed for
professional translators, based on “translation memory” with
terminology processing in real time, for example Wordfast, created
in 1999 by Yves Champollion. Worldfast was compatible with the
software of other key players like IBM and SDL Trados. Available
for any platform (Windows, Mac, Linux), Wordfast had 14,000
customers worldwide in 2010, including the United Nations, Coca-
Cola and Sony.
According to Tim McKenna, a writer and philosopher interviewed in
October 2000: "When software gets good enough for people to chat
or talk on the web in real time in different languages, then we
will see a whole new world appear before us. Scientists, political
activists, businesses and many more groups will be able to
communicate immediately without having to go through mediators or
translators."
A further step could be “transcultural, transnational
transparency”, as stated in September 1998 by Randy Hobler, a
consultant in internet marketing of translation software and
services: "We are rapidly reaching the point where highly accurate
machine translation of text and speech will be so common as to be
embedded in computer platforms, and even in chips in various ways.
At that point, and as the growth of the web slows, the accuracy of
language translation hits 98% plus, and the saturation of language
pairs has covered the vast majority of the market, language
transparency (any-language-to-any-language communication) will be
too limiting a vision for those selling this technology. The next
development will be 'transcultural, transnational transparency',
in which other aspects of human communication, commerce and
transactions beyond language alone will come into play. For
example, gesture has meaning, facial movement has meaning and this
varies among societies. (…)
There are thousands of ways in which cultures and countries differ,
and most of these are computerizable to change as one goes from
one culture to the other. They include laws, customs, business
practices, ethics, currency conversions, clothing size differences,
metric versus English system differences, etc. Enterprising
companies will be capturing and programming these differences and
selling products and services to help the peoples of the world
communicate better. Once this kind of thing is widespread, it will
truly contribute to international understanding."