Haitian Creole Has Come of Age

Up until this past year, many language experts did not see Haitian Creole as a legitimate separate language. Known more as a broken form of the French Language, Creole was long considered a substandard, slang dialect. This was made the more evident by the fact that there were no known computer translation systems that could accurately to Haitian Creole translations.

MT systems (Machine Translation Systems) do not have the ability to translate non-language or slang languages within a speech-to-speech platform because the software only reads one language to another – such as French.

The problem had first addressed back in 1998, when a researcher named Jeff Allen, along with his colleagues from Carnegie Mellon University Levitra (CMU); vowed to tackle the task of translating Creole by creating recordings for the speech-to-speech MT system. They even went so far as to create useable demos.

However, the subsequent events of September 11, 2001 at the World Trade Center put all of their research and funding to a screeching halt. Arabic translation and the Arabic language in general became the focal point of the language world.

Travel in time to January 12, 2010 when a massive 7.0 earthquake rocked Haiti on the outskirts of its capital city; Port-au-Prince. The country was in shambles and over half a million people died, with far more suffering injury and severe loss. As international humanitarian and emergency medical resources poured in, so too did the TWB (Translators Without Borders). This team from Paris provides non-profit translation support by volunteering in times of disaster and medical translations. Interpreters and translators flew in by record numbers to volunteer, but there were not enough.

The need for translating Creole was now an urgent necessity for humanitarian reasons. Localization industry leaders took a closer look at the need to provide tools to help aid works translating and interpreting communicate with the earthquake victims.

Since then, Creole translators have been in high demand, especially by the localization industry, but in short supply. Catastrophes have interesting side effects, and the lack of Haitian translators was only one consideration among the many challenges that Haiti faced.

In light of the earthquake and the aftermath, the need for Creole localization became all the more apparent. Medical translators and multinational aid organizations had to translate everything from medical documents to signs showing survivors where to seek assistance. Having the ability to communicate in Creole proved to be valuable to the volunteer teams.

Since Kamagra Soft the research and application was never brought to fruition over a decade ago – as first started by the college professors of CMU – the legal viagra pressure is thick for MT systems to step up to the plate. Many machine translation tools, such as Google and Bing now facilitate English to Haitian Creole translator tool. Thankfully, the volunteers have managed to help put Haiti back together despite the lack of adequate Haitian Creole linguists. Many localization specialists are following suit, by reconsidering the new need of Creole translators who can do more than just speak French.

Author Bio: Richard Allenby is the partner in Languagetran, a company that offers in translation service for companies and institutions. For Houston translation , please visit the LanguageTran.com site.

Category: Culture and Society/Language
Keywords: translation service, houston translation

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