Saturday, October 02, 2010

Google Translate

Google Translate now offers Latin as one of its languages. However it is far from perfect as yet. Try for example `Quid pro quo` a common Latin phrase that it might be expected to deal with and you get `What happens in Vegas`! `Veni, vidi, vici` is a bit better but not all there in that it gives `I came, I saw the street of`. Strangely however entering Te igitur clementissime Pater per Iesum Christum Filium tuum Dominum nostrum, supplices rogamus ac petimus uti accepta habeas et benedicas haec dona, haec munera, haec sancta sacrificia illibata in primis quae tibi offerimus pro Ecclesia tua sancta catholica` results in a good translation. I`ll have to try the rest and see how it compares to the new translation.
It seems more successful in translating English into Latin although I`ve not tried very much.

12 comments:

Left-footer said...

It's very interesting. I tried quid pro quo and got the same answer as you did.

It translated perfectly Virgil's "arma virumque cano" and Catullus's "et in aeternam, frater ave atque vale", but Horace's "O fons Bandusiae splendidior vitro" came out as 'O fountain of Bandusiae, more splendid by the glass', but maybe my Latin memory after 50 years is defective

Seeker said...

Interesting that it handles liturgical latin better than the more colloquial lines. Have some Vatican latinists been moonlighting for Google to earn a few extra pennies? :)

1569 Rising said...

I tried the well-known (to some)
"In omnibus sumentes scutum fidei",
and Mr Google was word perfect.

Could not every priest be equipped with an I Pod (or whatever it is called), so that the objection of some Bishops to non-Latinists celebrating the EF could be overcome. By extension, could not every pew have it's own laptop with a connection to Google Translate.

Google Translate would also be useful in making sense of some of the sermons preached, although, I have my doubts about any technology, no matter how advanced, could possibly help.

1569 Rising said...

The more I think about this wonderful advance in technology, the more I am excited at the possibilities for traditionalist EF Catholics of using some of the wonders of modern Hymnody in EF Masses.

"Color dies elucescat in mentem, sol natum, post noctis descendit civitatem in via et da verbum populo occurrit"

This could be sung to one of Rossini's psalm tones. I can't wait!

ScepticalBeliever said...

1569 needs to come into 2010! What he refers to is called an 'iPod' (one word, lower case i upper case P) and is used extensively and almost exclusively by 'Young People' for listening to what nowadays passes for music. 1569 is probably thinking of the 'iPad', a machine which seems to be of no real use to anyone but which is very expensive and has sold in millions.
Having said all that I have to agree with 1569 on the subject of sermons (I think we are supposed to say'Homilies' nowadays). Of course, making sense of sermons/homilies which too often (i.e. almost always) have nowt to do with the teaching of the Church can be difficult but we must persist in our efforts so that we can be aware of the problem. Perhaps we must return to reading a printed edition of the sermons of the Cure d'Ars, 'patron saint of parish priests' - which raises another interesting question which I hope to return to later after collecting my pension from the Post Office.

1569 Rising said...

Well, really, I put forward a serious suggestion about the use of modern technology in Church, and even go so far as to challenge musicians to adapt "Color dies eluescat" into sober and suitable plainchant, - and what response? A lecture on Ipods and Ipads from some Post Office Queuing pensioner.

There has been no "popular" music worthy of the name since Lonnie Donegan's (there was a REAL star)"Tom Dooley" in 1963. Maybe Sceptical can advise me on which I-thingy would be more appropriate for storing my extensive Donegan collection.

I am delighted to see, however, that Sceptical has come round to my way of thinking concerning the Holy Cure, (sorry, can't get the laptop to insert an accent)and the efficacy of his sermons. They were so effective, that the Devil set fire to the clerical bed - I trust modern priests using the sermons wont suffer Devilish Burning Bed Syndrome.

Em said...

I must say since I moved to Austria I have been able to understand every sermon (despite them being in German - or Pinzgauerisch or Bayerisch actually) and amazingly they relate to actual church teachings and are not used to make political points.
I never knew what sermons were supposed to be about in the UK - dogs running on altars; dogs not understanding pointing; something about stained glass windows and other weirdness involving animals and statues - those are just a few that I can remember.

Hugh Lloyd Jones said...

Just what did google make of the "Te igitur" passage of Latin. I am not sure 'Per Iesum Christum tuum Dominum nostrum' makes any sense even in Latin.

And what about 'Supplices rogamus *et* petimus...': shouldn't that be *ac* to make sense?

This looks like a pastiche of the opening of the Canon from the Traditional Latin Mass. I wonder what google would make of the genuine article.

FrankE said...

1569 Rising said...
There has been no "popular" music worthy of the name since Lonnie Donegan's (there was a REAL star)"Tom Dooley" in 1963. Maybe Sceptical can advise me on which I-thingy would be more appropriate for storing my extensive Donegan collection.



Perhaps a proper leather music bag might be the most suitable for stuff of that sort of antiquity.

Fr Michael Brown said...

Sorry Sir Hugh: those were my typos which I`ve now corrected.

1569 Rising said...

FrankE cuts me to the quick by describing my Donegan collection as "stuff of that sort of antiquity".

Admittedly, "Chewing Gum", "Dustman" and "Lively" were not the greatest musical works ever committed to shellac, but surely "New Orleans", "Coullee Dam", and the greatest of all, "Rock Island Line" (1955, with Chris Barber Band) deserve to be counted alongside Bach, Mozart and Stockhausen in the panoply of greatness. ( I withdraw Stockhausen from that list)

More seriously, still no offers to set "Color dies elucescat" to Plainchant". What's the matter with you Traditionalists? All talk and no action, I bet the Austrians could do it.

Latin Scholar said...

Maybe they'll come to the classical and other types of Latin when they have done the ecclesiastical stuff. But it is laughable.