Where I talk to you about linguistics and anthropology, science fiction and fantasy, point of view, grammar geekiness, and all of the fascinating permutations thereof...
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Humans to speak with dolphins via translator machine?
Here's a fun little article - apparently people will be trying to have real-time conversation in dolphin language using a computer translator. While we've never figured out what the critical linguistic elements are (sort of like phonemes), scientists hope to use intermediate, artificial "words" using the sounds dolphins can produce, to work through a pidgin-like intermediate vocabulary into grasping actual dolphin language elements. I hope it works - I can't help but LOVE this!
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This is rather odd. I could have sworn they were doing something with a computer-based translator a long time ago, maybe 15 years or more, but probably they'll have more success this time. Yes, very fascinating.
ReplyDeleteI know I'm excited to see the results!
ReplyDeleteThey may have been, Margaret. I'm intrigued by the pidgin-word approach, though, and that may be new. Heidi, I'm excited too!
ReplyDeleteYes, and there's no question that the algorithms (or at least the processors running those algorithms) are much stronger. I always thought it funny that dolphins could understand English, sure rudimentary but..., and we couldn't recognize a single "word" in dolphin, but we were clearly the more intelligent ;). Glad to see we've caught up at least in recognizing common phrases.
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