A machine can learn to identify sign languages

Posted by 40dots / News

While typing a message, the computer you’re working on identifies the language you use instantly. As part of his PhD project, Binyam Gebrekidan Gebre trained a computer program to perform the same trick on sign languages. Language recognition is the first step for automatic translations of videos.

To study sign languages – natural languages that use hands, facial and body movements to convey meaning – large data collections are needed. Transcription of videos is very time consuming though and therefore very expensive. The Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen set up a project to automate sign language transcription.

What is an expletive?

Posted by 40dots / Did you know…

What’s an expletive, and is it bad? There are several types of expletives, and though some may be considered offensive, others merely signal passive sentence construction or a perhaps desirable vagueness.

Readers of a certain age may recall, during the Watergate scandal, references to “expletive deleted” in discussions of audiotape recordings of conversations between Richard Nixon and certain government officials: Profanity (lots of it) was censored when the recordings were prepared for court proceedings. At that time, “expletive deleted” entered the lexicon as an ironic reference to profanity.

This phrase derives from the linguistic definition of expletive, which comes from the Latin term explere, meaning “to fill”; it refers to a meaningless word. “Expletive deleted” denotes the omission of a potentially offensive word, but that’s not the only usage of expletive.

Will 2015 be the year of instant translation?

Posted by 40dots / News

Back in November 2014, Skype launched a preview of Skype Translator, which will aim to provide real-time translation of conversations in over 40 languages. Hot on its heels, Google has now updated its own app to include an instant interpreting function using voice recognition, as well as an impressive translation feature which utilises a phone’s camera to automatically translate text viewed through the lens.

Long gone are the days of trying to decipher the unusual looking dishes on foreign menus – now all you have to do is hover your phone above the page and receive an instant translation. Here at Web-Translations, we’ve given the app a quick road test using three major tourist preoccupations: warning signs, tourist information and those all important menus. Take a look at how we got on below.

What does the world lose when a language dies?

Posted by 40dots / Other

“Language Matters,” a new PBS documentary, explores how linguistic heritage and traditional cultures around the world are at risk of being lost forever. Jeffrey Brown talks to the show’s host, poet Bob Holman, about the fight to revive languages on the brink.

Origins of the specious – Patricia T. O’Conner

Posted by 40dots / Books

Do you cringe when a talking head pronounces “niche” as NITCH? Do you get bent out of shape when your teenager begins a sentence with “and,” or says “octopuses” instead of “octopi”?

Do you think British spellings are more “civilised” than the American versions? Would you bet the bank that “jeep” got its start as a military term and “SOS” as an abbreviation for “Save Our Ship”?

The author take us wherever myths lurk, from the Queen’s English to street slang, from Miss Grundy’s admonitions to four-letter unmentionables. This eye-opening romp will be the toast of grammarphiles and the salvation of grammarphobes.

language books Patricia T. O'Conner

Dirty Little Secrets for Translators