A county in the southern Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region has withdrawn the country’s most authoritative Chinese language dictionary as local authorities initiated a campaign to “purify the reading environment for minors.”
The 11th edition of the Xinhua Dictionary, along with a few other children’s books, were removed from the shelves in Quanzhou County for including “vulgar content,” according to a now-deleted article posted by the local procuratorate Thursday. Authorities didn’t specify the dictionary entries that were deemed vulgar, but many online had accused the dictionary of using sexist explanations to describe certain words.
For example, the word “tease” was explained using derogatory references to women.
The move came after a county-wide inspection of school textbooks and children’s books on June 1.
Last week, China’s top education authority issued a nationwide review of school textbooks in response to controversial illustrations in sixth grade math textbooks. However, the inspections in Quanzhou were initiated by local authorities instead of the central government.
The deleted article was accompanied by several photos, showing two local procuratorate officials in uniform flipping through a copy of the Xinhua Dictionary at a bookstore and photographing the content deemed objectionable. Many online criticized the action as “performative law enforcement.”
On Sunday, the municipal procuratorate in Guilin, which administers Quanzhou County, determined the action as a “misconduct.” The statement didn’t elaborate further and asked Quanzhou officials to make the dictionary available again in stores.
Editor: Bibek Bhandari.
(Header image: Local procuratorate officials in uniform check a copy of the Xinhua Dictionary at a bookstore in Quanzhou County, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, June 1, 2022. From Weibo)
MONTCLAIR, NJ — The following news release comes courtesy of the Montclair Foundation. Learn more about posting announcements or events to your local Patch site.
The Montclair Rotary Club has helped a generation of elementary school students in Montclair and Verona get a jump start in building their vocabulary. Over the past 18 years the club has donated more than 15,500 student dictionaries to third-grade students in both communities. The first groups of students to receive their dictionaries have graduated from high school and finished college.
Montclair Rotarian Georgia Brown brought The Dictionary Project to the two communities in 2004 and has coordinated the effort the entire time. Annually, Ms. Brown and volunteers from the club distribute student dictionaries to pupils at 15 private, parochial, and public elementary schools in Montclair and Verona. This winter and spring, Ms. Brown and the club's team delivered a total of 1,401 dictionaries to third and fourth graders in both communities.
Students from the following schools received dictionaries this year:
Montclair: Bradford Elementary School, Charles H. Bullock School, Edgemont Montessori Elementary School, Hillside Elementary School, Lacordaire Academy, Montclair Cooperative School, Northeast Elementary School, St. Cassian Elementary School, Watchung Elementary School
Verona: Brookdale Avenue School, Forest Avenue School, Laning Avenue School, Our Lady of the Lake School, Spectrum360 School, F.N. Brown School
Ms. Brown's enthusiasm for the project earned her the nickname "Dictionary Peach," a reference to her home state of Georgia.
The Montclair Rotary Foundation, which is a nonprofit, has funded the purchase of dictionaries along with contributions by individuals. The Foundation also supplies financial grants to hunger relief efforts, affordable housing initiatives, and international youth exchange programs. The Montclair Rotary Club is celebrating 100 years of serving the local community during 2022.
Pandemic Disrupts Dictionary Distribution
Typically, the Rotary club gives dictionaries to third graders. But when the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted that schedule during 2020 and 2021, Ms. Brown decided to expand the project this year to include fourth grade classes in the dictionary distribution.
Longest Word in the English Language
The soft-bound books have more than 370 pages of words and definitions plus maps, biographies of U.S. presidents and information about America's states and nations of the world. In the past, Ms. Brown brought dictionaries to each classroom and encouraged to lookup a word each day. She showed students that the dictionaries included the longest word in the English language, which has more than 1900 letters.
Ms. Brown said, "I was a natural choice to chair The Dictionary Project committee because I have always loved words. And I am a curious person and good dictionaries have thousands of words plus an abundance of useful information."
The late Robert Pityo, a longtime member of the Cedar Grove Rotary Club, mentored Ms. Brown in the dictionary project. Brown embraced the project because she believes that learning is a lifetime habit. Dictionaries, she added, are tools people can always use.
During a recent dictionary delivery to Verona's Lanning Avenue School, Principal Howard Freund said, "I am grateful for the opportunity to give our third and fourth graders their own dictionaries. They hold the dictionary in their hands and flip through pages filled with thousands of words. Students get to discover different words and find out what they mean."
Marking the End of an Era
Ms. Brown, who is retired from the U.S. Postal Service's office in Montclair, is completing her last year as chairperson of the annual dictionary project. She said, "I have many wonderful memories meeting and speaking with students at each of the local schools. When I hand the dictionary to students, I often see a sparkle of gratitude in their eyes and that makes all the effort worthwhile."
The Rotary Club is marking its 100 Anniversary year in 2022. The club that serves the communities of Montclair and Verona by supporting not-for-profit organizations, schools, and community groups. Rotarians volunteer their time and contribute resources to aid local hunger-relief and food insecurity programs, affordable housing efforts, the local animal shelter, and programs for veterans and the elderly. Members also sponsor community service projects. For more information about the Rotary, which meets each Tuesday at 12:15 p.m., contact Club President Paul Metcalfe at montclairrotaryclub@gmail.com. The club currently alternates between virtual meetings and in-person sessions held at the Greek Taverna Restaurant in Montclair.
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Anyone who has ever used a computer to search a library’s collection has benefitted from or been let down by metadata, the information which librarians, archivists, and researchers create to make resources findable and accessible.
Historically, collections have been described in ways that reflect not only academic priorities and academic privilege, but also the frequently white, heterosexual perspective of the academy. So, the chosen terminology may also not reflect what is important to particular communities about content they may have created or resources that address their experiences. For members of the Black or LGBTQAI+ communities, this practice could make some resources virtually undiscoverable.
The River Campus Libraries (RCL) is participating in a new University of Rochester project that seeks to bring long-overdue change to this realm.
Led by principal investigator Joel Burges, associate professor of English and visual and cultural studies, the Rochester Digital Annotation Project (RDAP) will explore the process of creating metadata that better reflects the sometimes complementary and sometimes competing interests of scholars and communities.
The RDAP team includes the following members:
Maggie Dull, director of Metadata Strategies for RCL
Steven Fullwood, archivist and cofounder of the Nomadic Archivists Project
Miranda Mims, archivist and cofounder of the Nomadic Archivists Project
Tara Nelson, curator of Moving Image Collections for Visual Studies Workshop
Emily Sherwood, director of Digital Scholarship and Studio X for RCL
They will use a selection of materials fromthePortable Channel collectionheld by theVisual Studies Workshop(VSW) to prototype five “data dictionaries”: two grounded in the interests of Black and LGBTQAI+ communities and three in the interests of Black studies, queer studies, and media studies.
Five data dictionaries, two primary objectives
RDAP has two primary objectives in prototyping these dictionaries. The team will first explore how digital annotation can empower community members and scholarly researchers to understand the racial and sexual histories contained in local audiovisual archives such as the VSW’s. The second objective is to investigate the possibilities for generating accurate and inclusive data and metadata about those archives, over which community members and scholarly researchers will have shared authority.
With a seed grant from the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), the RDAP team will begin developing the five data dictionaries around the Portable Channel videos using Mediate, a time-based media annotation tool developed by Burges in partnership with RCL Digital Scholarship.
“To find those documentaries online, you would have to know to Google ‘Portable Channel’ or maybe ‘Rochester history’—something specific like that,” Sherwood says. “To make them more accessible, we’ll look to scholars for terms they would use to describe and document the collections, but we’ll also go out into the community and ask them how we should be talking about, describing, and teaching these histories.”
The ACLS grant is part of the Digital Justice Grant Program, which is designed to promote and provide resources for digital humanities projects that aim to diversify the digital domain, advance justice and equity in digital scholarly practice, and contribute to public understanding of racial and social justice issues, especially those that elevate the interests and histories of people of color and other historically marginalized communities including Black, Latinx, and Indigenous communities; people with disabilities; and queer, trans, and gender-nonconforming people.
RDAP is among the first eight projects to receive this award.
“The inaugural ACLS Digital Justice Grantees highlight a wonderful convergence between publicly engaged humanities and digital humanities,” said Keyanah Nurse, ACLS program officer of Higher Education Initiatives. “These teams exemplify the move away from extractive practices around data collection and towards collaborative knowledge production with those outside the academy. ACLS is proud to support the robust engagement with data ethics at the core of these projects.”∎
To learn more about Rochester Digital Annotation Project or Mediate, contact Emily Sherwood, director of Digital Scholarship, atesherwood@library.rochester.edu.
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The increasing complexity of customer translation requirements will propel the hybrid machine translation segment growth. In this technology, multiple MT processes are used and combined into one machine translation system to obtain high-quality content. With an increasing focus on improving the customer experience, the deployment of single-translation systems is not always effective. It can impact the overall accuracy of the translated data. The technology is categorized into different methodologies including multi-engine translation, statistical rule generation, and multi-pass. These approaches are used to address the issues related to a single translation system and build a custom model for industry-specific solutions.
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The BFSI sector will witness growth in the market owing to the introduction of new policies & subsiding loans for the agriculture industry. Government authorities are focusing on supporting farmers through these initiatives. For instance, in February 2022, the Indian government increased the agricultural credit target to around USD 232.2 billion for FY 2022-23 from USD 212.9 billion in FY 2021-2022. It will entice more farmers to set up bank accounts, from different rural locations in the country, for leveraging the monetary support. This factor will encourage the banking sector to incorporate its web pages or applications with advanced machine translation systems with multiple languages to allow the users to understand the information clearly.
The growing automobile sector in Europe will fuel the machine translation market demand during the estimated timeframe. Global vehicle manufacturers are increasing their presence in the region to strengthen their positioning and expand their customer base. For instance, in March 2022, Tesla inaugurated a new Gigafactory in Berlin to cater to the demand for Electric Vehicles (EVs) in Europe. The factory is estimated to produce nearly 500,000 vehicles at the site annually, employing over 12,000 people. Companies in the sector use machine translation technology for corporate communication, training materials for operations, and technical document translation. MT helps them in streamlining communication and reducing the overall cost.
Some major findings of the machine translation market report are:
The integration of AI in machine translation solutions will drive market growth. AI-based technology enables accurate, smooth, and automatic translation of one natural or written language into another target language. It estimates the quality of the machine-translated content.
A growing focus on content localization for better communication across businesses will boost the industry growth. Several companies from different sectors are investing in the technology for translating documents, manuals, and key information to prevent any financial & operational loss.
Increasing utilization of machine translation technology in the e-commerce sector will drive the industry expansion. Through these solutions, the market players are focusing on offering multi-lingual applications to the end-users, enabling a broad range of customers to understand the terminology in their preferred language.
Growing emphasis from technology providers on expanding their language and dialect lists will accelerate the market size. This factor will allow more customers to use these services for different applications.
Rising adoption of cloud services across SMEs and large organizations will spur machine translation technology deployment. Companies in different sectors utilize cloud technology due to its scalability, flexibility, and data security aspects. MT solutions can be easily integrated with the existing cloud infrastructure.
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Partial chapters of report table of contents (TOC):
Chapter 2 Executive Summary
2.1 Machine translation industry 360ยบ synopsis, 2018 – 2030
2.1.1 Business trends
2.1.2 Regional trends
2.1.3 Technology trends
2.1.4 Deployment model trends
2.1.5 Application trends
Chapter 3 Machine Translation Industry Insights
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic
3.3 Ukraine-Russia war impact
3.4 Industry ecosystem analysis
3.5 Technology & innovation landscape
3.6 Regulatory landscape
3.7 Industry impact forces
3.8 Investment portfolio
3.9 Growth potential analysis
3.10 Porter's analysis
3.11 PESTEL analysis
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Daisy Rockwell comes from a family of artists — some of whose work may be displayed on your kitchen calendar, or the surfaces of your chinaware, or hanging on the walls at your local doctors office.
Rockwell is the granddaughter of Norman Rockwell, who spent his later years living in Arlington, Vermont. She learned to use a paintbrush before a pencil. Her artistic work is truly inspiring, but it’s her work in translation that has brought new fame to the Vermont-based artist, writer and translator.
Rockwell has won the prestigious International Booker Prize for her translation of the novel Tomb of Sand, by Geetanjali Shree, from Hindi to English.
VPR’s Mitch Wertlieb spoke with author, artist and translator Daisy Rockwell. Their conversation below has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Daisy Rockwell: It's very exciting for me, because I have been translating for many years, decades in fact, but all my work has been published in India. It has been very difficult to find a publisher outside of India. So I was commissioned to do this project by Tilted Axis Press in the U.K. And the success coming from the long-listing and short-listing and subsequently the award makes it possible to publish the work in the United States for the first time. And that deal was just announced with Harper Via.
Mitch Wertlieb: I'd love to hear more about the relationship between translator and author. How did you two find each other? And how was this translation work done?
I was actually approached by a Bangla translator, who had been contacted by the U.K. publisher — [Shree] wanted to have this book translated. So he was kind of a matchmaker between me and the author.
So, initially she agreed to allow me to translate it. And then I did an entire first draft, which takes a long time. Then I started sending her questions, and I was going to go to India to work with her on it in person, because it was a very difficult novel to translate. But then the pandemic hit. So we ended up exchanging hundreds and hundreds of emails. We never Zoomed or spoke on the phone. And we actually met for the first time last week in London.
"... illustration and translation are very similar, because in both cases, you are transferring one thing into an entirely different medium. And even though translation is words, it's still a completely different set of words. The translator rewrites the entire book in a different language, so they've written every word of the book, they've reinterpreted it."
Daisy Rockwell, winner of International Booker Prize
What was that like, when you actually finally got to meet each other after this two-year correspondence of translation? It must have been amazing.
It was amazing, but we also felt like old friends. I mean, we had been through so much together already. So it was in some ways just like meeting someone I had known forever.
If you had to describe this book to someone, what about it stood out to you? What makes it a great book, in your estimation?
This book is extremely experimental, and Geetanjali plays with conventions and crosses borders in all different ways. And lately, I've been thinking that the English book that it most resembles for me is Ulysses by James Joyce. So think about that totally unconventional use of language, that pushing of the borders of the language that you're using.
And you know, plot is there. But for example, it's for some readers consternation, the main character doesn't get out of bed for the first 200 pages, while her family is swirling around her doing their thing, because it's a big Indian, joint family. And it's in that way kind of pushing the conventions of storytelling: What do you expect a story to be? What is a plot? You know, what are protagonists supposed to do? And then on top of it all, just those constant word-play and linguistic pyrotechnics.
Daisy Rockwell, Courtesy
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Vermonter Daisy Rockwell, granddaughter of Norman Rockwell, has won the International Booker Prize for her translation of "Tomb of Sand," by Geetanjali Shree.
I'm so curious too, about your journey from artist to translator. I mean, right in your bio, you say you made a detour into academia in the late 90s. And I'm wondering if that's when you started to get into translation work?
Yeah, I mean, I always enjoyed studying languages from middle school on. I then went on to college and eventually started studying Hindi, kind of on a whim. And it just drew me, and it was very challenging for me, because I had no background or previous knowledge about Indian culture.
But I just was drawn in, and I ended up getting a Ph.D. in South Asian languages and literature and pursuing kind of an academic career for some time. So I did start to translate at that time, when I was in graduate school.
I wonder if you think translation is a kind of artwork in that you are painting a picture from something else. I mean, these words are going to be translated into languages that people are familiar with and that they can understand. But it's not the original. You're painting a kind of picture in a way, aren't you?
Absolutely. And I've been thinking about this a lot, because I also painted the image that's used on the cover of the Indian edition of the book. And I started to think about how illustration and translation are very similar, because in both cases, you are transferring one thing into an entirely different medium. And even though translation is words, it's still a completely different set of words. The translator rewrites the entire book in a different language, so they've written every word of the book, they've reinterpreted it. So in some senses, I think there is a lot in common between translation and illustration.
I want to ask just one more question. And this is not related to your translation of this book. But you know, Rockwell is a fairly common name. I'm just curious, though, when people do meet you, if it does come up in conversation from someone you've never met before that, "Oh, I, you know, Norman Rockwell was my grandfather." What is the reaction to that? Is it overwhelming in some ways? And what is it like to be the granddaughter of someone so famous?
It was a bit overwhelming, you know, to be an artist myself, and to have that kind of hovering over my head. But what's interesting to me is that a lot of people, when they find out I studied Hindi, and now that I'm a translator, they somehow think it's a contradiction in a way — that Norman Rockwell is so American that it's kind of contradictory that I would study an Indian language.
And it's funny, because they don't realize what a cosmopolitan man he was. And he in fact, traveled to India and Pakistan, and he painted the portrait of India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru. So that's really not contradictory in my mind at all.
Have questions, comments or tips? Send us a message or tweet Morning Edition host Mitch Wertlieb @mwertlieb.
Lilt Is Recognized as a Representative Vendor in this 2022 report
SAN FRANCISCO, June 7, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Lilt, the leading Global Experience (GX) platform, today announced that it has been identified as a Representative Vendor in the Gartner "Market Guide for AI-Enabled Translation Services" 2022 report.
"This research provides application leaders with an overview of this emerging class of translation services." According to Gartner, "application leaders for translation, IT, marketing, and product planning should understand their organization's broader globalization and translation context and strategy." The report also states, "the AI-enabled service with the most profound effect is neural machine translation (NMT)."
Lilt is one of several vendors that offer potentially significant enhancements to translation processes and workflows, with a focus on Lilt's unique adaptive machine learning technology. The Lilt Engine offers a fully automatic and customizable adaptive neural machine translation service. It provides human translators with context-dependent NMT recommendations in the line of work, which they can then take, tweak or ignore. The Lilt system also simultaneously provides TM and termbase recommendations in addition to the NMT. This interaction with human editors reshapes the translation service in real time.
"Lilt enables businesses to create personalized experiences for their customers and prospects in the language that they prefer," said Spence Green, CEO of Lilt. "We believe that our inclusion by Gartner in this report validates the GX transformation that customers realize with our solution."
Advances in AI provide new opportunities to reduce costs and improve the quality and availability of translation services. AI can be used to automate and augment translation processes. This Gartner research provides application leaders with an overview of this emerging class of translation services.
Lilt is the only company to leverage predictive, adaptive human-in-the-loop technology and AI applications to provide scalable enterprise translations, enabling enterprises to effectively deliver a comprehensive, seamless experience for every customer globally. For more information about Lilt and its translation solutions, please reach out to [email protected].
Gartner, "Market Guide for AI-enabled Translation Services," Bern Elliot, Adrian Lee, JC Martel, 31 May 2022
Gartner Disclaimer: GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product, or service depicted in our research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
About Lilt
Headquartered in San Francisco, Lilt is the leading global experience platform, enabling organizations to build and deliver multilingual experiences at scale across every step of the global customer journey through its translation technology and services. The Lilt Platform uses AI and automation to make the localization process faster, better, and simpler, bringing human-powered, technology-assisted translations to global enterprises. Lilt gives industry-leading organizations like Intel, ASICS, Emerson, UIPath, and Canva everything they need to scale their global experience programs and go-to-market faster. Lilt has additional global offices across North America, Europe, and Asia. Visit us online at www.lilt.com or contact us at [email protected].
