| Migrate 4 | |
June 29, 2016
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| At first, the inventor of this translation machine thought that this machine would make people give up learning other languages. As learning other languages is a rather hard task, why would people put that much energy into studying a language when the machine does it perfectly?! But people did. When the math mother was talking to a Russian teacher, her language was translated into Russian with a perfect replication of her voice tone. She was able to hear her Russian voice in her earplugs, albeit a little bit later from her actual speaking moment. It was a strange experience for her. It sounded just like her voice, and she felt as if she was speaking Russian herself. She became curious to listen how her saying would be translated. She would monologue, "Good morning." Soon later her (machine) voice said, "DOBROE UTRO." She said, "Good night," her voice said, "SPOKOJNOJ NOCHI." She said, "Thank you," her voice said, "SPASIBO." She said, "You are welcome," the voice said, "NE ZA CHTO." Russian is said to be a beautiful sounding language. She was trapped. Soon she realized that this was the ultimate method to learn a new language.
At first, linguists all over the world protested against the new translation machines, saying these machines would make major languages stronger and minor languages weaker, and later would make them extinct. Because in any era, new technology gave advantage to the main users. There seems to be 6,000 to 7,000 languages in the world. UNESCO listed 2,500 languages in the Red Book of Endangered Languages. About 200 languages are the languages which are used by less than 10 people. But it didn't. Each language has its own letters, own words, and own rules called grammar. All of the languages were used by only human beings, of course. They use languages to express their feelings, ideas, and opinions. No difference in any language. Once AI super computers got the basic theory of languages, it was not so difficult to apply it to all of the languages in the world. On this day, an old couple living in a poor village was sitting nervously in front of a TV crew for an interview. This was a popular program recently. There were many other villagers sitting around the couple in their living room. The wife was grabbing a smartphone which her son bought for them and sent it to them recently. A middle aged female reporter asked one of the villagers. "Auntie, you also have difficulty to talk to your grandchildren, don't you?" The woman looked nervous, said, "Y…yes. We in this village have never been outside of this village. We can't afford TV. Even if we could afford a newspaper, nobody would deliver it to this remote area. Besides, we only communicate with our language. By the way, you really aren't speaking my language but the machine is, right?" From the speaker, the reporter's voice was being translated. The reporter was frustrated because she had explained it to the villagers an uncountable amount of times. The reporter held her mic to today's main character, the old wife, "Auntie, how do you feel now?" The old woman said, "Even now, I can't imagine I can talk to Hao Ran, our only grandson. Last time when they came, two years ago, my son translated for me and my grandson. He even translated for my daughter-in-law. I dreamed this many times. Our language will be extinct soon, because only a few people speak it, and they are all old now. I appreciate the new technology to give me this chance to talk with my grandkids before my death." Her husband nodded deeply. Suddenly the smartphone rang. The old woman was tense. Being urged by her husband, the old wife pushed the start button. Soon a boy's face appeared on the screen of the smartphone as well as the big monitor that the TV crew had brought. The boy's voice sounded, "It's me, Hao Ran. Grandma! Can you hear me?" It was a cute voice. It took a lot of time for the grandmother to talk because she was so impressed by the voice of her grandson. Finally she said, "This is your grandma. Hao Ran! I can see you! I can hear you!" Once she started to talk, she couldn't stop. She had many things to say since her grandson was born … This show was a big hit and after the show many strange things started to happen. Many of the viewers felt sympathy to the villagers and they thought that their language should not become extinct. They started to use their language with the machine. Some middle schools also started to study this language, thinking this way was good for their students' education to get a sense of social responsibility, like environmental preservation. Other schools followed suit with other red book languages. Actually, people felt pride in their own language, like it was their identity. The more they lived outside of their country, the more they started to love their language. (To be continued …) |
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*replication 複製
*albeit だけれども
*linguist 言語学者
*extinct 絶滅する
*endanger 危険にさらす
*follow suit ならう