I encountered a new blog from my i18n tribe today, Localization Best Practices. Their post, “Pidgins and Creoles” or “Why Machine-only Translation Will Always Fall Short”, caught my eye.  It is interesting, even if I don’t fully agree with them.

Jonathan writes that, at a recent conference on localisation:

…an audience member asked me about machine translation, and if it would ever completely take the place of human linguists in the industry. I answered “No,” although I did concede that machine translation is consistently making strides and does have a place in the localization community. He then mentioned that a scientific group in Europe recently had success with a robot performing a live human appendectomy. He believed that if something that delicate could be automated, what made something a “simple” as language beyond the scope of machines and artificial intelligence?  I thought about his question and then simply said, “Because there are no pidgins or creoles for appendectomies.” Continue Reading »

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