Mini Tumblr Thread About Sci-Fi Translation Has Got Us All Scratching Our Heads

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AmyBrown
Mar 17, 2019 3:00 PM EDT

Never really thought about this until now! @Foone brings up an interesting question that sparked this gem of a Tumblr thread. 

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  • 01
    Text - alice-and-cheshire-cat Follow foone Follow @Foone Here's the question I always have with universal translators in sci-fi: how do they know when to stop translation? Like say an alien asks about deserts on earth, and the human lists "the sahara desert, gobi desert and kalahari desert" Alien: You just said "desert" six times. 1:43 AM 19 Jul 2018 756 Retweets 1,883 Likes t 756 68 1.9K foone @Foone 24h ("Sahara" is Arabic for "desert". "Gobi" is Mongolian for "desert", and "Kalahari" is Tswan
    via alice-and-cheshire-cat
  • 02
    Text - foone @Foone 24h "Here we are in Chad, looking upon the mighty Lake Chad!"M "Ahh yes, the land of Lake, bordering the Lake Lake. Another fine human name." t 40 301 foone @Foone 24h "And here's Nyanza Lac, in Burundi. As you can tell by the fact that it's named Lake Lake in Bantu & French, it's a la... actually this one's a city. A city named Lake Lake"
    via alice-and-cheshire-cat
  • 03
    Text - petermorwood Google Translate vs. German (the original was longer, this is long enough...) Russisch tallenisch Deutsch Sprache erkennen X Die Volkswirtschaftslehre (auch Nationalokonomie, Wirtschaftliche Staatswissenschaften oder Sozialokonomie, kurz WL), ist ein Teilgebiet der Wirtschaftswissenschaft 166/5000 Ubersetzen Deutsch Englisch Franzosisch The economics of economics (including economics, economics, economics, economics, economics, economics) is a part of economics Anderung vorsc
    via alice-and-cheshire-cat
  • 04
    Text - dndidiots But what if aliens are equally bad at naming things because of the nature of their interstellar lives. They show us a star map and this happens: Alien: This is the Xyzzeryx Zyxxeryv. Human Diplomat: *pauses* Human Diplomat: *turns to his translator* If you serious think for a second they named this system the star star system I am firing you on the spot.
    via alice-and-cheshire-cat
  • 05
    Text - ayamccabre OK but consider: what if they have no word for desert? So the Sahara desert goes through the translation software and comes out as a waterless, desolate area of land with little or no vegetation, typically one covered with sand a waterless, desolate area of land with little or no vegetation, typically one covered with sand
    via alice-and-cheshire-cat
  • 06
    Text - doodled93 And at once, all of humanity was Moon Moon #goddamnit moon moon > 38,954 notes
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