Monday, October 20, 2008

Translations = Media yangga

I've been thinking about meaning and language - is language powerful or weak. Powerful but limited? 

I'm playing around with free online translators. I went from English to each of the languages offered (in alphabetical order) and then back to English in between each translation to trace what happened. Starting with the phrase: 

"of course everything I say is clear as day," and ending with "Media yangga"

of course everything that I say is being clear as noonday
everything is natural that I say, as a midday clearly
everything is natural what I say, like one I halve it clearly
All is natural, that I speak, as one I divide into two it clearly
Everything is natural, that I spoke, since I split into two it clearly
Everything is natural, that I spoke, since I tore in two it apparently
Everything is natural that I spoke, since I tore it in two apparently
Everything is natural what I was speaking, since I tore it in two apparently
All is natural, that I spoke, as I have torn it in two apparently 
Everything is natural, that I was speaking, when I have torn it in two evidently
Everything is natural that I spoke when I tore it in two obviously
It is natural that everything is speaking when I tore it clear in two
Naturally, that whatever is said when torn into two clear
Of course, that everything that is called when torn into two clear
Of course, all of this, known as the torn, divided into two clear
Of course, all of which, known as the torn, divided into two separate
Of course, all of them, known as ambivalent, divided into two separate
Everyone is known as ambivalent, divided into two separate
Everyone is ambivalent, divided into two
ALL ambivalent, halved
ALL, half are ambivalent
ALL, is half the ambivalent
ALL, the medium is ambivalent
Ambivalent about the attitude of all the media is
The attitude of the media is all about yangga
The media is all about yangga
Media is about yangga
Media is yangga
Media yangga

4 comments:

sleepy said...

Oh my god this is awesome
The Oh my God this is impressive
the OH my god this is impressive
the OH my God of this is impressive
the OH my God of this is impressive
OH my god of it импрессивен
Oh, my God this is terrible
Oh, God this is terrible
Oh, God, this is horrible
God, this is terrible
God, it's terrible
God, it's awful
God, this is Awful

Jules said...

ah! that's so good. i can't believe it went from awesome to awful!

Unknown said...

What an interesting experiment. But I think that this does more to show the inaccuracy of online translators than to really show how much words change the meaning of a statement between different languages. I think a better test would be kind of a "telephone" game with a string of bilinguals who are fluent in different languages.

But on the other hand, a standard game of telephone shows how much a sentence can change just within people who all speak the same language.

sleepy said...

Nah, I think this experiment rocks and does more than show the inaccuracies of online translators,,,,c'mon! boring!