Machine translation and Orwell

For many translators, machine translation is a combination of nuclear war and global warming. There is a sense that it will wipe them out from the map but they hope that it won’t happen in this generation. This week, I skimmed through two articles discussing MT. My thoughts were led not the future of the profession but to the future of English.

The first article, written by Florian Faes and cited by Slator in its weekly newsletter, discusses the linguistic differences between texts translated by MT as compared to human translation after editing. Among the writer’s conclusions, albeit on a limited literary sample, was MT texts tend to have a higher resemblance to their originals in terms of structure even when this structure differs in the target language as well be “simpler and more normalized”.

In another article, also cited by Slator, Jochen Hummel, the creator of the Trados computer assisted translation (CAT) tool, declared that his tool would no longer be used in the future but instead all human translation would be based on MT. In other words, the opus of previously written text will standardize our language. As I see it, what was will be in a much stronger form than today and subject to manipulation by corporate and governmental organization.

These two observations led me to recall Orwell’s 1984. For those who have forgotten or simply never read the book, he described a world where the government controlled everybody (Big Brother). Interestingly, one of its main tools was its control of language. English vocabulary had been reduced to the bare minimum. For example, a negative was expressed by adding “un” to the positive, e.g., unhungry. All texts were online (yes, this book was written 1949) and amended as political winds changed so that the public never had any proof of any change in policy or thinking. Looking at North Korea in 2019, Orwell would be appalled but not shocked.

Given that English is the dominant language of communication worldwide for the foreseeable future and assuming that machine language, however “artificial” it sounds initially, becomes the statistical and controlling norm, it is not hard to imagine a world in which people’s thoughts are expressed in intentionally simplified language and form. It would be undoing Dickens and Shakespeare, to name a few.

It is clear that MT has its place and will not disappear. It also clear that MT will have a huge influence on translation project management. Looking at the development of chat language, which is also simplified in many ways, it can be argued that this language is no less rich and individual. However, I still fear the gradual “poorification” of English not as a result of government action but instead due to industrial pressures.  I hope Orwell was wrong in this prediction and that 1984 will never come.

Relative Equality

One of Orwell’s most quoted lines, from Animal Farm, refers to the fact that while everybody is created equal, some are more equal than others. The context of this criticism was so-called egalitarian societies, i.e. the Soviet Union but, unfortunately, this relative equality applies in all its ugliness to Western perception of modern events.

To demonstrate, Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents,_2015) presents a long list of terrorist attacks that have occurred this year.  Some of them have truly been horrendous and barbaric.  The attacks in Kenya and Mali can only be described as barbaric. Yet, in terms of world coverage, the attacks in Paris received more press lines than all the others combined.  Ideally, every human life is equally precious. In practice, a European (or French or Australian, et al) life is much more highly prized in terms of its loss. In simple terms, 3^rd world people can die like flies. Yet, the fight against barbarism, Islamic style, is a universal fight with any victim, regardless of their country of residence, regretted. May all their memories be blessed.

Likewise, the US Anthropological Association just overwhelmingly passed a motion calling on the academic boycott of Israel.  As an Israeli, I would be the last to claim that Palestinians have equal footing to Jews in Israel.  In fact, I would have no problem understanding such a motion if said association also decided to boycott Jordan, which refuses to give Palestinians any citizenship rights and has massacred them in the past, Lebanon, which keeps them in refugee camps, Egypt, which has closed its border with Gaza and flooded the tunnels with sea water, and Syria, which merely kills them. In fact, the only country where Palestinians have some legal rights and political autonomy, not to mention economic stability, is Israel. So, if an organization feels that human rights are the highest priority, such a policy should be applied equally.  Otherwise, an observer might believe that the decision was not based on high principles but instead on low-level anti-Antisemitism.

Applying  the Serenity Prayer, the one about the courage to change, serenity to accept and wisdom to know which situation applies, the question arises regarding what a person that is less equal needs, courage or serenity. Personally, I would like the knowledge of how to change so we can have a world where everybody is created equal, period.

Victory, Defeat and the Middle East

The Middle East is truly difficult for the Western World to understand.  It seems familiar and similar,  but peculiar and annoying differences keep on popping up.  For example, there are two words existing in all languages (to the best of my knowledge) with clear meanings: victory and defeat.   In regards to war, if your armed forces can or do take over the enemy’s territory, you win.  If you have to ask for mercy, you lose.  Every kid who ever had a fight in the schoolyard understands that.

However, in the Middle East, the words have become confused.  In 1948, 1956, and 1967, both Israelis and Arabs agree that the former won and the latter lost. Since then, Lewis Caroll has taken over, i.e. a word means what I intend it to mean.  In 1973, Egypt and Syria had to run to Russia and the UN and ask for a ceasefire because Israel had wide open roads to Cairo and Damascus.   Curiously enough, Israelis view the Yom Kippur War as a great defeat while the Egyptians regularly celebrate the anniversary of the great victory.  In the first and second Lebanese wars (the former officially known as Peace in the Galilee Campaign), the Palestinians and Hezbollah were forced to retreat, to the sea in the former case, granted while causing quite a few casualties for the Israelis.   Again, the sides seem to view the matter inversely, with the Israelis very uncomfortable with the memory of the conflict and the former two groups proud of their resistance. 

The latest of chapter of  this Go reversal game is the most recent tit-for-tat exchange in Gaza, otherwise known as the Pillar of Cloud operation, which ended some two weeks ago.  The Palestinians objectively were extremely unsuccessful in their goal of killing civilians while the Israeli air force destroyed most of their planned targets with minimum collateral damage, as civilian casualties are euphemistically called.  Predictably, Israelis are uneasy with the result while the Palestinians are celebrating their phantom victory, i.e. the vague promise to talk about opening borders.

Clausewitz wrote that war is another means of diplomacy.  I suppose that the claimed victories and defeats are actual if you taken into account the political goals of the parties.  Still, as Orwell suggested, the complete misuse of words eventually strips them of all of their meaning, especially in the Middle East.

Down and Up in Paris and London

English and French, sharing many of the same roots and differing in their development, have many “false friends”, i.e. words that sound like but may have subtle or not so subtle differences I meaning.   My favorite example from the financial world is the word exercise.  Very few native English speakers would even think that this term also can be translated as “fiscal year” in French financial documents. 

Somewhat related to the “false friend” issue is the matter of describing moods, both good and bad.  Sadness and joy in their many variations need to be expressed.  French and English tread slightly different paths.

On the dark side, Americans and Brits can feel a bit down or have the blues when their favorite team loses a game or their date cancels at the last minute.  It isn’t pleasant, but French speakers would also have le cafard for the same reason.  Now, of course, losing your job causes depression on both sides of the English Channel / La Manche.  A person who often feels low for no special reason suffers from melancholy, whatever your native language.  The English speaker might experience anguish at discovering that his/her spouse has been cheating for the last ten years, but it doesn’t seem to carry the sound and impact of the French angoisse.

On the bright side of life, eating a good ice cream might make you happy, but only a good job and home will make you content in the Anglo-Saxon world.  (Any parent of a teenage daughter understands the difference fully!)  By contrast, that same glace makes a Parisian content, but the newlywed French couple appears heureux.

So, free translation from French to English does not always express the speaker’s meaning.

By the way, to anybody who needs a good bittersweet laugh, I strongly recommend George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London.  He makes starvation funny.