SCRABBLE Dictionary Adds 500 New Words, Including Embiggen and Jedi - Nerdist - Dictionary

Nov 22 2022 • 12:58 PM

Looking forward to infuriating your relatives over the holiday? Sure, there are the tried and true ways, but brushing up on the 500 newly-accepted Scrabble words is more fun—and educational. Enjoy the double benefit of annoying everyone you play while also expanding your vocabulary. The newest edition of The Official Scrabble Player’s Dictionary includes words that will boggle your opponents like bae, horchata, and deepfake. Or really start some family arguments with the big ticket letters in queso, juicery, zeedonk, and fauxhawk. Embiggen is also among the new words. Created in an episode of The Simpsons, it of course enjoyed a resurgence as Ms. Marvel’s catchphrase in this year’s Disney+ show.

The official dictionary is a partnership with Merriam-Webster, which updates their own dictionary every year. The Scrabble dictionary team hadn’t put together a refresher since 2018, leading to this huge list of new words. Everything from adulting to zonkey makes the grade, but they didn’t release a full list. This leaves it up to curious players to mine the new edition for ways to take down their opponents.

Thankfully, AP News did some of that research and reported dozens of the new words. Food and drink slang like guac and marg are on the list. As are Jedi and spork, which we can’t believe the official dictionary hadn’t already approved. Multiple words are now verbs, including verb itself. That means the -ing and -ed versions of at, torrent, vibe, and ixnay are fair game.

Marvel Studios

Scrabble players will have a quick learning curve and need to change with the linguistic times. And if you play other versions, like against a robotic opponent or as part of a digital board game table, you’ll need to update those dictionaries as well to unlock the 500 new words.

Melissa is Nerdist’s science & technology staff writer. She also moderates “science of” panels at conventions and co-hosts Star Warsologies, a podcast about science and Star Wars. Follow her on Twitter @melissatruth.

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Public asked to vote for Oxford Dictionary word of the year for 2022 - Yahoo News - Dictionary

What’s one word or phrase that sums up 2022 for you?

If it happens to be “goblin mode”, “metaverse”, or “#IStandWith”, then you can pick your favourite for Oxford Dictionary’s word of the year.

It’s the first time Oxford Languages has opened up its annual word of the year listing to a public vote, attributing the decision to people around the world being “the true arbiters of language”.

Voting for the Oxford word of the year 2022 is now open, with the team of expert lexicographers narrowing it down to the three words they felt most represented this year.

“2022 has been a year defined by opening back up. However, although we have finally been able to physically reunite and come together again, our world somehow feels more divided than ever,” Oxford Languages said in a statement.

“In recognition of this shift, we wanted to open up the final step of our word of the year selection process to the true arbiters of language: people around the world. How we communicate and develop the English language affects Oxford’s selection every year, but for the first time in its history, the 2022 Word of the Year will be chosen by the public.”

For “metaverse”, the lexicographers said: “We see the conceptual future brought into the vernacular in 2022. From hybrid working in VR, to debates over the ethics and feasibility of an entirely online future, usage of this word has quadrupled in October 2022 compared to the same period last year.”

They added that “#IStandWith” recognises the “activism and division” that has characterised 2022. “From war in Ukraine, to the Depp v Heard lawsuit, this ‘word’ coined on social media to align your views to a cause or person can often further foster dispute (and sometimes even hate speech) in its polarizing nature,” they continued.

As for “goblin mode”, this term spiked earlier this year as the idea of rejecting societal expectations put upon us, in favour of doing whatever one wants to do. While it originated in 2009/10, the dictionary credited Julia Fox with bringing it into the mainstream.

There have been over 30,000 votes at the time of writing, and voting will close at 00.01am on Friday 2 December.

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Reading the Bible as a translated text - The Presbyterian Outlook - Translation

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Reading the Bible as a translated text  The Presbyterian Outlook

Youdao Dictionary Pen 3 will translate and read texts for you - Good e-Reader - Dictionary

The Youdao Dictionary Pen 3 is designed to offer a host of functionalities, which includes scanning and translating text to English or assisting those with dyslexia or other forms of reading difficulties to continue with their reading. This way, the device can also be beneficial for those who’d like to learn or converse in a foreign language other than English. Right now, the device supports translation from English to Spanish and Chinese and vice-versa. Support for Korean and Japanese languages is slated to be added soon.

The pen works on the principle of Optical Image Recognition or OCR for which it comes with an integrated scanning feature. The makers of the device said it has a recognition rate of 99.6 percent and is able to scan text from various surfaces, including those on screen as well. Similarly, it can detect texts of different colors and fonts too.

Thereafter, the Text-to-Speech or TTS feature converts the texts into audio. Users will be able to adjust the volume as well as the playback speed to suit their requirements. The actual translation bit is taken care of by the Youdao Neural Machine Translation (YNMT) which relies on AI-based technology for an accurate and natural translation of the given text.

Those with dyslexia or other forms of reading impairment will find it easy to read books using the Youdao Dictionary Pen 3. Users will just have to scan the portion of the text they are reading, and the pen will do the rest, that is translate the text if needed followed by reading aloud the portion it just scanned. As already stated, the reading volume, speeds, and accent can all be adjusted as per user preferences.

Further, with more than 4 million entries included with the device, it can function just as fine as a mobile dictionary as well. For this, it features multiple built-in dictionaries such as that of Merriam-Webster. After a text portion is scanned, the pen displays both the original as well as the translated version on the display it comes with. Users can then tap on the individual words to get its meaning. This helps in building vocabulary and makes the pen great for learning new language skills.

Coming to the specs, the Dictionary Pen 3 features a 2.47-inch HD touchscreen display made of 2.5D glass. It comes with 1 GB RAM and 16 GB of storage. The integrated battery lasts for around 8 hours and recharges via the Type-C port it comes with. Connectivity options include Bluetooth and Wi-Fi besides being able to work in offline mode as well. It boasts a metallic build that makes it strong and durable.

As for its availability, the Dictionary Pen 3 can be procured from smartyoudao.com or Amazon. It is priced $254.98 though the company is right now offering a 25 percent discount with the promo code SMARTYOUDAO25.

With a keen interest in tech, I make it a point to keep myself updated on the latest developments in the world of technology and gadgets. That includes smartphones or tablet devices but stretches to even AI and self-driven automobiles as well, the latter being my latest fad. Besides writing, I like watching videos, reading, listening to music, or experimenting with different recipes. Motion picture is another aspect that interests me a lot and maybe I’ll make a film sometime in the future.

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State agencies to expand translation services - City Pulse - Translation

Janelle James

LANSING –  Advocates are pushing for ballots to be in several languages and for more translation services at state agencies and other initiatives to expand language access in Michigan. 

The budget for the state fiscal year, which began Oct. 1, includes $700,000 to make it easier for non-English speakers to access state services and an additional $260,000 to hire coordinators to oversee the expansion. 

Expanding language access would allow immigrants and residents whose first language isn’t English to interact with state agencies in the language that they are most comfortable. This could mean offering ballots in several languages and giving people the option to use the language they are most comfortable with when they are at state agencies. 

Advocates for the change recommend that the money be spent on hiring more trained state translators and interpreters who are proficient in multiple languages, and training for staff at state agencies on how to interact with people with limited English proficiency. 

“What we see a lot of right now is people just entering things into Google Translate,” said Jungsoo Ahn, the interim executive director of  Rising Voices, an organization that advocates on the behalf of Asian Americans in Detroit. “Even within language access there is a cultural competency that needs to be addressed.” 

Nearly 300,000 people self-identify as having limited proficiency in English, said Simon Marshall-Shah, a policy analyst for the Michigan League for Public Policy. The most popular languages spoken by people whose first language isn’t English in Michigan are Arabic, Spanish,  Chinese, Hindi and other South Asian languages, he said. 

Many state agencies, like the Secretary of State offices offer translations, for over a dozen languages on their websites. Other agencies have adopted their own protocols for language access but statewide standards for language access don’t exist, Marshall-Shah said.

“For immigrants to participate in our systems and to actually feel like this is an inclusive democracy, it is absolutely essential that everything is in language” that they understand, Ahn said.

There is also a push to have an advisory board to oversee the implementation of the program to track and report language access needs and address complaints, according to the League for Public Policy.  

Hawaii is one of the few states with an advisory council that does such a thing, and the only state to have two official languages: Hawaiian and English.  

While new spending will expand access at the state level, organizations like Rising Voices and Voces,a nonprofit organization serving the Hispanic/Latino community in Battle Creek, would like to see language access expanded in schools and hospitals as well. 

“If somebody needs a Korean translation for a parent teacher conference, there might not be translators available so we need to make sure that there is a pool of translators available for such things and that there are translators available to translate the materials that go out to families,” she said.  

“People in our community also have really, really complained about how insufficient language access has been in hospitals,” Ahn said. It is already difficult enough to care for a loved one in the hospital or to grieve, but to do that and not have accurate translation is even harder, she said. 

Jose Orozco, the executive director of Voces, agrees. 

A lot of school districts don’t provide translation during their school board meetings, so many parents ask for our help to get their kids in programs that they saw at the meeting, he said. 

“The schools are also recognizing the importance of hiring bilingual staff members to be able to diversity and meet the community with those various needs,” Orozco said. 

Ahn said expanding language access can be beneficial for immigrants as well as the economy.

“It creates more jobs, more opportunities and more capacity within our system. It creates a much more thriving society and better outcomes in health care, education and in the legal system,” she said. 

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Armenian-Persian Diplomatic Terminology Dictionary Published - Hetq Online - Dictionary

A new dictionary focusing on the Armenian and Persian equivalents of diplomatic terminology has been published in Iran.

The dictionary, compiled by Vahagn Afyan, was launched at a reception on Saturday at the Armenian Embassy in Tehran.

“Relations between the Iranian and Armenian nations have a long history and diplomatic relations between the countries have expanded over the past few years and will improve in different fields in the future,” Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Safaryan is quoted as saying at the book launch according to the Tehran Times.

Photo (from left): Vahagn Afyan , Armenian Ambassador to Iran Arsen Avagyan  and Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Mnatsakan Safaryan the November 19, book launch. (IRNA/Asghar Khamseh).

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Meta Releases Large Dataset for Multilingual Speech-to-Speech Translation - Slator - Translation

Meta released, in early November 2022, SpeechMatrix, a large-scale multilingual corpus of speech-to-speech translations. The goal, according to Meta, is to make the development of speech-to-speech translation (S2ST) systems easier.

SpeechMatrix was mined from real speech; that is, European Parliament recordings. It contains speech alignments in 136 languages, at an average of 1,537 hours of source speech in each direction, making a total of more than 418,000 hours of speech.

“To the best of our knowledge, SpeechMatrix is by far the largest freely available speech-to-speech translation corpus,” wrote the Meta researchers in their paper.

Data Scarcity

As mentioned in the Slator Interpreting Services and Technology Report, big tech companies and academia are driving rapid advancements in the area of speech-to-speech translation.

Speech-to-speech translation models can be indirect — via text and machine translation — or. direct, building machine learning models based on audio recordings of speech in source and target languages.

Slator Interpreting Services and Technology Report

60-page report on the growth industry of interpreting, featuring analysis by mode, setting, geo, buyers, business use cases, RSI, OPI, VRI. Incl. market size estimate.

Direct models are attracting more research interest and have many advantages. For instance, they apply to the translation of languages without a well-defined writing script as direct models do not rely on any intermediate text. However, model training is faced with the major issue of data scarcity.

As the researchers explained, “Human-labeled speech data is expensive to create, there are very few data resources providing parallel speech, and the data amount is quite limited.”

Mined Data Quality and Multilingual S2ST

To evaluate the quality of the mined data, the Meta researchers trained bilingual speech-to-speech translation models on SpeechMatrix data and reported on translation performance.

Enabled by the multilinguality of SpeechMatrix, they also explored multilingual speech-to-speech translation.

According to the same paper, “There are very few studies of multilingual speech-to-speech translation, partially due to the lack of multilingual speech-to-speech resources. With the massively multilingual data we have mined, we are able to explore multilingual S2ST training.”

As we look to the future of translation, we’re eager to see other researchers use the techniques we pioneered with Hokkien to create their own speech-to-speech translation systems for other written and unwritten languages.

— Meta AI (@MetaAI) October 19, 2022

The researchers discovered that strong S2ST models can be trained with mined data and validated the good quality of speech alignments across languages.

In addition, they demonstrated that model pre-training, sparse scaling using Mixture-of-Experts — an ensemble machine-learning technique where the number of parameters of the model increases in magnitude without sacrificing computation efficiency — and multilinguality can “bring large gains to translation performance.”

The researchers hope that this work can help others develop textless, speech-to-speech translation systems for other written and unwritten languages.

Everything related to SpeechMatrix is open source and accessible for download via the GitHub repository.

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