An Oklahoma City businessman who reads his Bible every morning wants to help others around the world do the same by helping them connect to God's holy word in their own language.
Mart Green, ministry investment officer at Oklahoma City-based Hobby Lobby, is helping to promote an ambitious Bible translation campaign that aims to make the Bible accessible in every "heart language" around the globe by 2033.
Green is sharing information about illumiNations, an alliance of leading Bible translation organizations, that has begun the "I Want to Know" Bible translation campaign. It's goal is to reach 1 billion people with little or no access to scripture.
The new campaign was fittingly launched in the days surrounding the Easter holiday in early April. Green said he has made it his mission to be a part of such efforts ever since he attended a touching ceremony where a man was surprised with a Bible that had been translated in a language he could read and comprehend.
Green said it typically takes about seven years for a New Testament to be translated, but it had taken 40 years for the man of the hour's New Testament translation to be completed.
Green saw firsthand how important it is to have a Bible translated into an individual's "heart language," a language that a person's speaks and understands more than any other language.
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"I went to a Bible dedication and saw a man weep over a Bible he waited 40 years to get. It just impacted me, and I realized that I'd taken God's word for granted," he said.
"The next day, I made a vow to the Lord that I'd get up first thing every day and read God's word for the rest of my life. I've done that every day since 1998."
Green said he learned at the Bible dedication that there were many more people around the world who don't have Bibles they can easily read and comprehend.
"In that exact moment I went from 'Why are we doing this?' to 'How are we going to make sure that everybody on planet Earth at least has access to the Bible?'"
The business leader has financially supported efforts like the new Bible translation campaign over the years, and he knows there are people in the community who want to help do the same.
The “I Want to Know” campaign gives people the opportunity to sponsor the translation of one or more Bible verses. In this way, they can aid in the translation of one of the 3,800 language communities worldwide that don't have a complete Bible. According to illumiNations, more than 2,000 of those languages don’t have a single verse of Scripture yet.
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The partnering agencies that make up illumiNations are: American Bible Society, Biblica, Deaf Bible Society, Lutheran Bible Translators, Pioneer Bible Translators, Seed Company, SIL International, United Bible Societies, The Word for the World and Wycliffe Bible Translators USA.
Green said by partnering together, the organizations can get the translations done much more quickly than if they were working separately.
"What we're doing is we're collaborating all together. They did the research, and it was going to be the year 2150 before the last translation got started, and that's just unacceptable. So we thought what if we came together," Green said.
"We're going to cut about 120 years off. Instead of the year 2150, our goal, an ambitious goal, is that by 2033, everybody on planet Earth will at least have some scripture."
He said one of the campaign's challenges is that all of the easiest languages to translate were translated first. This leaves translators to work on translations for small people groups living in remote areas of the world which can be challenging but not impossible.
Green said coming up with the finances for the translation projects can also be challenging, but he thinks this isn't insurmountable.
He said the campaign's first line of business was prayer because the project's participants believe in the power of prayer. He said a special prayer has been created for the campaign.
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Meanwhile, Green said the rewards outweigh the difficulties of such a major Bible translation effort.
The gratefulness expressed by those who receive newly translated Bibles is reward enough.
From a donor's point of view, he said most people don't know that there are many languages that have yet to be targeted for Bible translation.
Green said people interested in being part of the project, may pray the prayer created for the campaign. They also may sign up to help financially sponsor a verse of scripture or do more to sponsor the Bible translation effort.
He said the campaign has garnered positive responses.
"People are excited. They want to be a part of history.
"We want 95 percent of the world to have a full Bible."
To learn more
For more information and to see illumiNations "I Want to Know video vignettes, go to https://ift.tt/3eboSCp
Mark Lee is a simplified and traditional Chinese translator from Richmond, B.C., who has aided in translating COVID-19 information to seniors during the pandemic.
Even prior to COVID-19, there was already a high demand for translation aid in Vancouver’s Chinatown — seniors needed medical appointments translated, for example.
“Once COVID hit… We already had that understanding that this was something people needed,” he said.
Lee is also a member of C19 Response Coalition, a group that has continued to aid in translating material to Vietnamese, Tagalog and Chinese dialects with the support of federal COVID-19 grants.
He says he understands allocating the grants to grassroots groups working on the ground, but when these groups are already spread thin and don’t have the resources to make the system change, it’s more of a “band-aid solution.”
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“They’re giving us money, and we’re having to build a parallel system,” he says, adding that if it’s not going to be integrated at a federal level, it feels like there is no point.
“Essentially we’re doing their job, but at a lower rate, and without any of the types of resources that they have access to. It’s really frustrating.”
The lack of multilingual, culturally competent resources available to racialized communities has been a historic and ongoing issue that has only been exacerbated amid the flood of COVID-19 information, and advocates are calling for increased support.
In March, the Canadian federal government presented the Vaccine Community Innovation Challenge, aimed at encouraging individuals and/or groups to propose a campaign “to help promote vaccine confidence in their communities.” 20 finalists are expected to each receive $25,000 for their proposals with one receiving a grand prize of $100,000.
Amy Yee is a member of Ottawa’s Chinese Canadian Collective (CCC), a non-profit organization dedicated to examining Chinese Canadian experiences, issues and representation. The CCC was one organization that received an email from the Federal Anti-Racism Secretariat on submitting a proposal.
Read more: COVID-19 exposes gaps in language education — why there needs to be increased support
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But Yee says the challenge is problematic, as creating a proposal in such a short window, on top of loaded tasks advocacy groups are already facing during this tumultuous time, only creates more work for them.
“This whole year we’ve just been chasing things, and if the government had a structure beforehand, this wouldn’t have happened,” says Yee, adding the initiative itself is late considering the pandemic has been happening for over a year.
Prior to COVID-19, Yee says the CCC was already advocating in Ottawa for translation resources in places like recreation centres, where people encountered difficulty in understanding things like changes in scheduling.
Advocacy groups have pushed for language access for decades and if officials don’t take action, groups can only do so much, Yee adds.
“We’re actually very new to this fight. But when you look at the history, it’s nothing new. History is repeating itself and it’s being erased and wiped from public memory,” she says.
Lee adds health authorities are not culturally aware, and there’s a lack of understanding in navigating communication with racialized communities who don’t speak English.
Keeping track of COVID-19 vaccinations in Montreal’s racialized communities
Keeping track of COVID-19 vaccinations in Montreal’s racialized communities – Mar 9, 2021
He points to an example of when the C19 Response Coalition and other groups reached out to authorities ahead of time to ask what their plan was to aid seniors in Vancouver’s Chinatown.
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“Then they have a pop-up clinic and they didn’t tell anybody about it,” he says.
He says he and his group ended up frazzled the day before, knocking on elderly neighbours’ doors to translate information to them and bring them to the clinic.
Lee adds being on the ground and doing work for these communities has been traumatic.
“Through this person being oppressed, you are now experiencing it as if you were them, because you have to relay their information… You’re their voice, you’re their ears,” he says.
Samya Hasan, executive director of the Council of Agencies Serving South Asians (CASSA), says the agency immediately saw gaps in services for vulnerable South Asian communities when the pandemic began — from food insecurity to precarious housing situations.
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In September 2020, CASSA introduced a COVID-19 helpline to provide live and recorded information on health and safety, government benefits, vaccinations and more in Urdu, Hindi, Tamil, Bangla and Punjabi.
“Our goal through that helpline was to support people that have technology barriers and language barriers,” Hasan says, adding that CASSA has received calls of help from different groups, including seniors, international students and women seeking support in domestic abuse situations.
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In addition to the helpline, CASSA also started creating videos and infographics about COVID-19 relief, debunking myths and more.
“There’s a lot of misinformation about the virus and vaccines floating around on social media and communication apps like WhatsApp,” she says.
“(We’re) creating content that targets misinformation and provides accurate and real information to people so that can make informed decisions.”
Hasan also points to partnerships CASSA has with member agencies like Punjabi Community Health Services and the Tamil Canadian Centre for Civic Action, which have been doing a lot of work on the ground.
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CASSA says there has been a lot of frustration in the communities they serve, especially in terms of understanding COVID-19 information, which is rapidly changing and usually in English.
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“We’ve been hearing a lot of South Asian seniors that are trying to get vaccinated… having a lot of trouble accessing the system,” says Hasan.
Hasan says websites are in English and often involve navigating multiple windows before ending up in a waiting space. Even younger, more tech-savvy people are having trouble booking appointments, she says, so it’s even more difficult for people with technological and language barriers.
“That accessibility piece is huge. And we’re getting a lot of people providing us feedback that they don’t understand how that system works,” she says.
“South Asian communities have some of the highest rates of COVID-19, along with other racialized communities, and so I think there could have been a lot more done to support those communities earlier on.”
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There could have been a lot more resources when those trends began to help racialized communities come out of the pandemic stronger, but many of the initiatives now are coming in sporadically and late, adds Hasan.
Rufaida Mohammed, co-chair of the Canadian Muslim COVID-19 Task Force, says the group has partnered with other organizations to help deliver information through hosting events and webinars, as well as developing multilingual COVID-19 resources accessible to Muslim communities.
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Additionally, the group has been working with Toronto Public Health and Peel Public Health to build connections in hot spots that the health units didn’t have before.
Forming alliances with other organizations has also allowed the group to readily share its multilingual resources and material, says Mohammed.
“It is really critical for us to be able to stand up in solidarity, not only for Muslims that are going through the pandemic, but for all Canadians that are going through the pandemic,” says Mohammed.
“The task at hand is to make sure that people in the red zones get access to these clinics,” she says, adding that this may look like recruiting translators to be present at mosques, for example.
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She says the group has also aimed to ensure cultural acuity and considerations are in place about fasting and Ramadan, and that there are multilingual Muslim doctors at these vaccination sites if someone feels ill after a dose.
For the second time during COVID-19, Muslim communities are experiencing one of their holiest months when they fast.
“The Muslim world is doing this right now, and fighting a pandemic and having loved ones that are not well, having extreme amounts of loss of social status, loss of financial stability, loss of identity,” she says.
Mohammed says she finds this Ramadan has been a deep reflection of not only the pandemic, but also inwardly who the community is as a nation.
“We give up a lot of things just to be more inwardly present spiritually. And that’s the resilience, that’s being developed within us as the days go by,” she says.
“That is a parallel for us with the lockdown. And it’s been a deeply reflective and a deeply spiritual one for a lot of Muslim-Canadians. And it’s even through this month that we find greater strength to withstand the pandemic.”
Read more: ‘Tired of the word resilience’: Canada’s racialized communities navigate ongoing pandemic
‘It’s not fair to them’
Working towards language accessibility has a lot of layers, Lee says, but one way to implement better support is having staff who have language competency. While there are racialized staff in offices, Lee emphasizes it’s important to not lay the extra burden of translating on them.
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“It’s not in their job description to be the token Punjabi speaker… It’s not fair to them and they don’t get paid extra to do the type of work that falls on them,” he says.
Lee says government officials and health authorities reaching out to multilingual media outlets to ask for their help in disseminating information could also aid in building connections.
Like Lee, advocates emphasize the importance of continuing to foster working relationships with groups that are already established in the communities that government officials are targeting.
South Asian community members work to dispel myths around COVID-19
South Asian community members work to dispel myths around COVID-19 – Feb 9, 2021
Mohammed says reaching out to shelters, food banks, immigration and cultural centres can help in disseminating information on accessing vaccine clinics and necessary information to populations who may not be digitally literate.
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“And for multi-generational homes, a cultural piece is that there’s a dependency on younger members of the family to really look after the elderly,” she says.
“We know that a lot of those younger members are precarious workers trying to do their part to sustain the family,” she says, adding that increased support for this could look like recruiting volunteers to aid in vaccine bookings.
Looking at health and socioeconomic disparities, as well as factors like location and computer literacy, can help identify what determines one’s ability to access these resources and how we can fill those gaps, Mohammed adds.
Similarly, Hasan says it is essential to look into how funding and resources are being distributed.
“I think what we need to get past is this colonial way of distributing funds to community organizations,” she says.
Read more: Coronavirus pandemic hitting Ottawa’s most diverse communities hardest, health unit says
She says when money is passed on to smaller organizations to do translations and community work, they’re expected to work off of pennies.
Hasan says moving forward, it is important to look at what has been the most effective in supporting racialized communities.
She points to grassroots groups, volunteer groups, COVID-19 relief groups and more who have been doing work with little to no funding.
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“(They’ve) really connected to the community, have trust with the community and are on the ground literally talking to people, whether it’s about benefits, helping them sign up or register for their appointments,” she says.
“They’ve been really working day in and out, and other organizations, large mainstream organizations, have not been able to do the same.”
It’s time to look at who is really supporting the best interests of these communities, Hasan says, adding that large multi-million-dollar organizations don’t have the trust or full knowledge of what they need.
“Going to people that have all that knowledge have all that trust, and giving them the resources is building their capacity to serve the community,” says Hasan.
“As opposed to doing things like the way that they’ve been done for many years and, frankly, failing in a lot of aspects.”
Nous aimons les livres! That’s right – it’s a new month, so that means we’ve got a new FART challenge ahead of us. For May, we’ll be reading books in translation and specifically books translated from a language we don’t already speak. So in the spirit of that, here are a few fantasy series that have been translated to English from other languages. Have a look and let us know what you’ll be reading this month.
Legends of the Condor Heroes by Jin Yong – Translated from Chinese
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Set in the invaded Song Empire of China, Guo Jing, the son of a murdered Song patriot, was raised in the Mongolian army of Genghis Khan. He has been fated all his life to one day face a formidable enemy: one who has been raised in privilege and trained flawlessly in martial arts. On the way to meet his destiny, Guo Jing must return to China across the war-torn country, facing tests of courage, strength, and loyalty at every turn.
One of the most popular books in the Chinese wuxia genre, A Hero Born, the first in the Legends of the Condor Heroes series, is a worldwide bestseller and was one of Time’s 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time.
The Witcher by Andrzej Sapkowsi – Translated from Polish
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Geralt of Rivia is a Witcher – one of the few remaining magical assassins whose task in life is to rid humans of the fantastical monsters who have roamed the earth since the convergence of the spheres. The Last Wish is a collection of connected short stories that follow Geralt’s exploits as he searches for paid monster-killing work and the beasts he finds along the way. Hint – not every monster is as terrible as it seems, and just because a thing is beautiful doesn’t mean it’s good.
You may already be familiar with some of the stories from Sapkowski’s The Witcher collection – in addition to being a bestselling book series, they were recently made into a Netflix show as well as a mega-hit video game from CD Projekt Red. The Last Wish is the first book in the series.
Inkworld by Cornelia Funke – Translated from German
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Meggie’s father, a traveling bookbinder, is reading aloud from one of his books – a story called Inkheart – when the villain from the tale slips out from beneath the pages and lands in the middle of their living room. Meggie is swept into an adventure the likes of which she has only ever read about – but now it’s up to her to get the villain back into the story and out of their lives.
Another worldwide bestseller, Inkheart is the first book in the Inkworld trilogy, an upper middle-grade series set in Italy. It was made into a film in the late 00s, though less is perhaps more when it comes to talking about this adaptation.
Saga of the Borderlands by Liliana Bodoc – Translated from Spanish
Buy on Amazon
A fleet of ships is approaching the Remote Realms, but even the best Astronomers of the House of Stars can’t say whom they are bringing – the long-awaited Northmen returning from war? Or are they sent by the Son of Death, bringing the end of life itself? An emissary from each of the tribes is sent to form a Great Council to prepare for the coming. But one of the seven sent will not survive. Regardless of who is on the ships, the Great Council knows one thing: The era of light is at an end.
The Days of the Deer is the first novel in Argentinian author Liliana Bodoc’s world-acclaimed epic fantasy trilogy, Saga of the Borderlands.
The Twelve Kingdoms by Fuyumi Ono, Illustrated by Akihiro Yamada – Translated from Japanese
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Yoko Nakajima is just a regular high school girl – that is, until a mysterious being whisks her away from everything she knows and returns her to a magical kingdom she doesn’t remember belonging to. Left only with a magical sword, a gem, and many, many questions, Yoko must confront her destiny and embark on the adventure of a lifetime.
Sea of Shadow is the first in this seven-book fantasy series set in modern-day Japan and the otherworldly land of the kingdoms. The novels were also made into a popular anime TV show by Studio Pierrot.
Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko – Translated from Russian
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In a modern-day Moscow where shape-shifters, vampires, and sorcerers roam the streets, there are two worlds: the Dark and the Light. All of the Others, an ancient race of supernatural humans, must swear to one or the other, both of which expect to one day face down against each other when the supreme Other arrives. That day comes when Night Watch agent Anton stumbles upon an uninitiated Other with unbelievable potential. The battle that promises to follow will not only rock Moscow but also the world.
Night Watch is the first in Lukyanenko’s world-famous Watch series. The first novel has been adapted into a film with a follow-up, Day Watch, as well as a video game from Nival Interactive.
There you have it – so many great fantasy stories are waiting to be read. Make sure you tag us in your FART reads and use the hashtags #AYearofMagic and #FARTchallenge (Twitter) or #FARTreadingchallenge (Facebook and Instagram).
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American author and translatorBill Porter, also known asRed Pine, has referred to theTao Te Chingas “one long poem written in praise of something we cannot name, much less imagine.” Despite the elusiveness of its subject matter, the fourth-century B.C. Chinese text, celebrated as one of the foundations of Taoist thinking, has persisted over the millennia as a fundamental influence on Eastern philosophy and an inspiration to much Western creativity and thought.
In early April, Mars Hill University professor of religious studiesMarc Mullinaxdebuted his new book,Tao Te Ching: Power for the Peaceful,a translation and interpretation that blends a scholarly awareness of the text’s original historical context with an accessible connection to the contemporary American experience. In the book, Mullinax builds a framework for understanding each of theTao Te Ching’s 81 verses through historical reflection and a thoughtfully curated selection of quotes and writings ranging from biblical excerpts to the observationsWalt Whitman, actorMahershala Aliand Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monkThich Nhat Hanh.
“My primary audience was my students,” he explains. “I wanted to do something that was an actual translation and not just an interpretation, and this was the result.”
A graduate of Mars Hill University who went on to study under philosopher and political activistCornel Westat Union Theological Seminary in New York City, Mullinax first began teaching the text and learning classical Chinese characters in the 1970s when he was a young educator in South Korea. Since then, he notes in the book’s introduction, the gentle, unintrusive wisdom of theTao Te Chinghas been his “touchstone and spiritual magnetic north,” serving as a “return to clarity in frenetic or uncertain times.”
“I’ve been reading theTao Te Chingat all kinds of junctures in my life,” Mullinax says. “It’s sort of this interface between my life and times when things are pressured or things are hard or when things are going well. And it’s always been a good interpreter or translator for me, so I thought, well, now it’s time to return the favor.”
Staying power
Mullinax attributes the enduring popularity and relevance of the text to its focus on what is inherently right and good about the world. Conversely, he points out, Western culture tends to be concerned with what’s wrong, lacking or broken.
“What Taoism does is demonstrate that there is within creation itself an original harmony, original peace — you may want to call it original goodness — that is already built in, factory-installed. It’s already there, and all we have to do is access it,” he explains. “There’s nothing we have to prove, nothing we have to convert to; just breathe in with whatever’s there and leave your ego behind so that you can then hear and breathe with the situation you’re in.”
Mullinax likens the power of the Tao to the persistent forces of moving water that shaped the visually stunning, softly swirling sandstone formations of Antelope Canyon in Arizona. “Water has carved that place so beautifully over eons and eons, and that’s what Tao does to the hard places of this world,” he says.
Among the themes Mullinax highlights in his translation, including ideas of peace, going against the grain and leadership, is the transformative force ofwu-wei, a concept he describes in the book as “wise, active, noninterfering cooperation with the Way of the Universe.” The literal translation of wu-wei he says, is “not doing.”
“But it’s not really that. It’s becoming so wise or accustomed to the way Tao works that you sense what’s right to do almost subconsciously,” he says. He offers the analogy of driving a car and, without really needing to think about it, simply turning a corner at precisely the right time and in just the right place. In the book, he also compares wu-wei with tacking while sailing or jiggling a key in a sticky lock until it catches.
In the 21st century, says Mullinax, wu-wei can be applied to everything from responding with appropriate public safety and health precautions to the COVID-19 pandemic to social justice efforts. “I’ve interpreted Tao as original justice. People who cooperate with Tao can bring justice to any situation that is unjust,” he says, noting that racial inequity, environmental degradation and income disparity are all violations of the Tao. “A person connecting with Tao can slowly, surely, bring change; we can change the course of that Titanic so it doesn’t have to hit the iceberg.”
‘Good troublemakers’
The opposite of wu-wei is focusing only on one’s self. The Taoist worldview, Mullinax says, is one of total interconnection among all beings and objects, like a huge, complex spiderweb. “If you pluck one part of the web, all the other parts are going to vibrate at some frequency. [If you’re] acting out of ego, acting out of competition, you’re plucking or destroying the web, and that web is what helps us all survive.”
He notes that those in the West who follow the wisdom of theTao Te Chingrather than the thought systems and beliefs of the prevailing culture tend to become social misfits with the potential for change-making leadership — what he says the late U.S. Rep.John Lewismight describe as “good troublemakers.”
“You’re tuning in to another wavelength that’s always been there, and by doing that, you engage in the unpopular thing that maybe is the just thing — you visit the people on death row, you give money away to people who really need it, you do these strange things like a Mother Theresa,” he explains. “You pretty much spend what capital you have — moral capital, life capital — to bring change to places that are hard and difficult. And that’s what becoming a misfit is: going outside the norm.”
Looking at contemporary American culture through the lens of theTao Te Chingwould ask us to wake up to what’s happening around us and reconsider the foundations of our worldview. “I believe we were born awake and have gone to sleep,” says Mullinax.
“We’re going to have to rethink capitalism, which is ‘grow, grow, grow,’” he continues. “We’re going to have to rethink individualism, which is ‘me, me, me.’ We’re going to have to rethink speciesism, which is always seeing only ourselves in nature, anthropocentrism. We’ll have to rethink a lot of things. But it’s nothing new — it’s been ‘thunk’ before. This is just a refinding of what is already naturally there.”
For more on Marc Mullinax, to find his book and for details about his upcoming local Tao talks, visitmarcmullinax.com.
The European Union released a long-awaited proposal on AI legislation on April 21, 2021. European Commission EVP Margrethe Vestager described the legal framework as “the first [of its kind] on the planet.”
The very few use cases for which an outright AI ban is proposed include social credit systems, “subliminal” techniques to manipulate people’s behavior in harmful ways, and general police use of real-time “remote biometric identification systems” in public places — although judges may approve exemptions.
The legal framework focuses primarily on AI systems considered high risk, with the potential to significantly impact people’s lives; for example, algorithms that determine credit scores or that control automated machinery and vehicles.
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Existing EU product safety legislation may already apply to many high-risk AI systems, which will be subject to a series of requirements, such as using “high-quality” training data to avoid bias; incorporating “human oversight” into each system; and documenting, for both users and regulators, how the system works.
The AI systems will also have to be indexed in a new EU-wide database (perhaps inspired by the AI Incident Database). To add some teeth to the legislation, violators face fines of up to 6% of their global turnover or EUR 30m (USD 36m), whichever is greater.
The proposal’s broad guidelines do not mention machine translation (MT) explicitly, so language service providers (LSPs) and end-users alike may need to read between the lines to understand their potential future obligations.
Chatbots and products of natural language processing (NLP) are considered “lower risk.” As such, these must simply inform users that they are interacting with a machine.
Slator 2021 Data-for-AI Market Report
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44-pages on how LSPs enter and scale in AI Data-as-a-service. Market overview, AI use cases, platforms, case studies, sales insights.
Content generated by language models, such as OpenAI’s massive GPT-3, may be subject to similar requirements. Several writing tools have already been developed using GPT-3, including AI21 Labs’ Wordtune and an application by OthersideAI that expands bullet points into paragraphs.
It is not clear, however, whether the proposal applies to less interactive content, such as transcripts generated by automated transcription programs. In practice, many companies that use automated transcription already include a disclaimer to address possible typos and other errors.
Deepfakes: Not Banned, Just Regulated
The potential for risk grows with synthetic voice production, a process several companies in the language industry are working on for dubbing; that is, “teaching” a person’s voice to “speak” in another language. (See: synthetic dubbing)
It is not difficult to imagine how such technology could be misused. And yet, as Mark Leiser, an assistant professor at Leiden University’s Center for Law and Digital Technologies, pointed out on Twitter, Deepfakes “are not banned, but regulated for transparency” in the proposed framework.
Synthetic voices may not yet pose the same kinds of risks as visual deepfakes.
Jesse Shemen, CEO of Papercup, a startup offering “video translation with human-sounding voiceovers,” recently explained to Slator that although the field has grown by leaps and bounds, “there is still a large amount of technical progress and change that needs to be made in the world of text-to-speech; and, as a result of that, the commercial applications are still incredibly early in terms of how speech can be exploited.” (That said, it has not stopped Apple from a hiring spree that may or may not be related to machine dubbing.)
It remains to be seen how, if at all, human involvement in the AI workflow will affect the new requirements.
If MT text must be labeled as such, would the label still apply if text is post-edited by a human linguist? And how might that rule change as MT’s capabilities expand and diversify? Amazon is already exploring automated quality checks for subtitles; and Lilt CEO Spence Green told Slator that his company is currently working on automated MT review.
The EC’s Vestager has described the need to address AI risks as “urgent.” But, by the time the European Council and Parliament approve the proposed legislation, both the AI landscape and the language industry may look very different.
The Council of Europe is currently implementing a project on the translationinto Hungarian of its human rights education manual for children Compasito. In that context, it is looking for a Provider for the provision of translation services.
Deadline for submission of tenders/offers ► 10 May 2021
Automatic translation-quality evaluation metrics are indispensable for the fine-tuning of customized machine translation (MT) models as well as fundamental natural language processing (NLP) research. BLEU–a precision-based metric–remains the most popular. However, more accurate metrics, which consider precision and recall in addition to other factors such as hLEPOR, have demonstrated better correlation with human judgments. Previously, among the factors that prevented the wide use of more advanced hLEPOR was the lack of public Python implementation.
AI (Artificial Intelligence) developers from Logrus Global, in association with Lifeng Han, the main author of the original metric, have completed the Python port of the compound hLEPOR metric, as presented in the original article, and made it available to the entire Python development community via PyPi.org.
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The hLEPOR is more precise with respect to the factors of precision, recall, sentence length and differences in word positions. Additionally, it allows per-sentence evaluation scores as well as document-level score (as opposed to BLEU) and is available free of charge. The uniform, single-source automatic baseline metrics are easily available to everyone, benefiting practitioners and researchers alike. Further improvements with the integration of deep learning language model technology into the metric are on their way too.
The library is available at https://ift.tt/3vxnzU1
The Council of Europe is currently implementing a project on the translation into Hungarian of its human rights education manual for children Compasito. In that context, it is looking for a Provider for the provision of translation services.
Deadline for submission of tenders/offers ► 10 May 2021
Tender file