Google’s automatic translater now has a to and from Latin option, but my first test of it found is basically faulty: I entered:-
The duck swallowed the frog.
and it produced:-
Anas devoravit ranae.
(not ‘ranam’)
In Latin to English:-
nemo me impune lacessit. (Scotland’s royal motto)
became
there is no impunity.
and not the correct “No one can harm me unpunished.” or similar.
Google Translate admits // Fatetur Google Interpres
Ego non a BENE cum transferendis Latine in Latin et vix melius cum transferendis Anglorum in Latine.
I do not, well, when translating from Latin into English, and even better* when translating English into Latin.
*It’s trying to say “hardly better”.
I think Google translate relies on parallel texts to help build its algorithms. While there are lots of Latin/English parallel texts out there, I suspect a lot of them aren’t going to be very useful. Sure, the Aeneid is online. Sure, Dryden’s translation is online too. I bet they’re even closely associated. But would they be close enough to each other to give a starting point?
Once you’ve got the starting point, is there enough supporting data to refine the process?
So don’t get too down on what they’re doing. Yet.
Google Translate is dubious even with modern languages. It can come close, but there are almost always mistakes.
But vastly superior to the results with Latin.
I just now tried Google’s autotranslater in English to Latin mode, and I got:-
The duck swallowed the frog. :: Anas absorbuit rana.
The duck digested the frog. :: Anas digeri rana.
The cat caught the mouse. :: Cattus prendiderunt muris.
The fat cat sat on the mat. :: Adipem cattus sedebat in lecto.
The night was dark and stormy, and the captain said to the mate: “Tell us a tale”. ::
Nox intempesta tenebris, et praefecto lambere ait: “Indica fabula”.
A loose or stray English “the” is translated as “in” :: correct for Nahuatl, but not for Latin!
I tried Google’s autotranslater in Latin to English mode on the Pope’s resignation speech, and it got the translation mostly correct.
Today I tried it on the “lorem ipsum” mock-Latin text
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorem_ipsum
and it produced this translation:-
“This page is available, however, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it. Or desires to obtain pain in the bullet train to find fault with in the pleasure of pain that produces no resultant good to flee. These cases are perfectly account of the system, the fault of those who are in the original text: this is to sink.”
Google translate currently translates “quid pro quo” to English as “Grindhouse” ??
Last year, it translated this same phrase as ‘what happens in Vegas’. Which may have been more accurate…