Translation strategy for endangered small languages

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Translation strategy for endangered small languages

Algirdas Saudargas

To cite this version:

Algirdas Saudargas. Translation strategy for endangered small languages. Tralogy II. Trouver le sens : où sont nos manques et nos besoins respectifs ?, Jan 2013, Paris, France. 3p. �hal-02497125�

lien video : http://webcast.in2p3.fr/videos-conference_opening_algirdas_saudargas

Translation strategy for endangered small languages

Algirdas Saudargas

TRALOGY II - Ouverture de la conférence Date d’intervention : 17/01/2013

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TRANSLATION STRATEGY FOR ENDANGERED SMALL LANGUAGES - ALGIRDAS SAUDARGAS

Thank you very much for inviting the Baltic States to this conference and letting me share my views on the situation.

I named this address Strategy for endangered smaller languages in view of the challenges of digital space. However, while listening to the previous very interesting presentations, I can see that such a strategy is needed on the European level as well. What exactly do I mean by strategy here? I mean that some political decisions are necessary. I have been campaigning for such a strategy for two years in Lithuania in order to reach a political decision that would not just amount to sharing the available money and assigning some tasks. I would like to share some of my considerations with you because, in order to have a political decision, you cannot simply convince politicians. Or rather, to convince politicians, you need to convince their constituencies, that is the common people, the voters that such a decision is needed. Otherwise, nobody will decide anything.

The METANET study as presented by Mr Uszkoreit showed one very obvious problem. The study asked the question “to be or not to be” – to be or not to be for 21 languages in the digital space! Unfortunately, this warning has not been accepted, has not been heard and understood by the language community. The study showed, for example, a 0 level of analysis in the Lithuanian language community, which shows that nobody is interested in doing that. In order to illustrate the dangers, let me share some historical reminiscences with you. In my native town Kaunas stands the statue of a book carrier dating back to the 19th century. Book carriers were always highly respected in Lithuania, as they were trying to protect and save the Lithuanian language.

At the end of the 19th century, when Lithuania was under oppression, the Russian Tsarist regime tried to switch from the Latin alphabet to Cyrillic in the country. The point was that when you would be deprived of Latin scripture and forced to switch to another scripture, you would have to change your mindset, you would have to learn to read and write from the very beginning, and in another mindset. To avert that danger, books carriers began smuggling books. This kind of resistance was linked to the geopolitical situation, of course. However, we may also look at it from the technical point of view, because the nation was deprived of the language technology of its time, namely of printing. And this phenomenon was fought against. Today, however, nobody is fighting, even though the dangers are quite clearly identified.

In my opinion, we are confronted with the same barriers nowadays. Using the words of the American writer Nicholas Carr, what we are facing today are shallows [Nicolas Carr, The Shallow: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains, 2010]. The semantic web approach is shallow information. It is not knowledge: it is access to knowledge. It is knowledge about how to find knowledge. Today we are flooded with such shallows. What am doing now at the European Parliament or here at the Tralogy conference? I am speaking shallow English. It is not deep English. With such limited capacities, I am unable to read, for instance, Shakespeare in his own language. It would take so much time that I have to read him in Lithuanian. And I can do that because the translators who made his works available to our community have access to high language and high knowledge. There is no doubt that there are linguistic minded people who can read “Homer” in ancient Greek, but in the general society, people will read the same author in their native language. And now, there is a danger that this shallow flood may deprive us of access to our native language, to the knowledge of our community, to world knowledge. That is the reason why we need language technology.

To finish this brief presentation, I would like to suggest three lines of action. In order not to be drawn in the shallows, some bridges ought to be built.

First of all, we need a broader approach to language technologies. We need language technologies to be understood in the broader context. Language technologies must be put into so called cogno – converging technologies, otherwise, they will be lost. There are many Commission documents on converging technologies after 2002 in the United States as well as many analyses on the place of flagship projects in there. But language is not visible. Language technologies are everywhere, yet they are never mentioned or put into this context. This has to change.

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TRALOGY II - TROUVER LE SENS : OÙ SONT NOS MANQUES ET NOS BESOINS RESPECTIFS ?

Secondly, language technology at this moment is rather in a small boat. So the thing to do is to follow flagship. The most appropriate flagship is human brain projects. If we go with cogno to these human brain projects put in this context, we will follow flagship.

Third and lastly, it was proved that, taking into account that big English analysis that is in the perspective of cogno as well, understanding language in general through one language has failed. We now know for a fact that it is impossible to understand human thinking by analysing only one language. Today in Europe we have a really fitting laboratory. Indeed only a multi- language approach is able penetrate the sense of language. We need some additions but we need some additions in all 26, in all 60 languages together and immediately for all of them. And only then will we have this human brain project in place.

Thank you very much for providing me with this opportunity to present my thoughts.