Bad translations into native Alaskan languages

[Lisa]

This came in a google feed some days ago but I keep thinking about it. I can see the temptation to cheat on translations for such rare languages... the translation company can't have staff that knows everything... but (as with so many things) the importance is normally going along at zero but then the rare time comes up where it does really matter.

https://alaskapublic.org/2023/01/09/los ... on-merbok/

[księżycowy]

I saw that story as well, and even thought of posting it. It's a shame what happened.

Reminded me a bit of this article too: https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2023/0111 ... ngs-typos/ (which is for Irish, not Native Alaskan languages, but arguably they are in similar straits)

[Saim]

According to Holton, in at least one of the documents where FEMA’s news release says “State News Desk,” the translated version reads, “when she said so, the dog ran farther off from the curtain.” In another section of the same document, what should be a translation of information about the Small Business Administration reads, “that one said that I should draw a line on the ice when he gets close.”

“I mean imagine if someone, you know, took all of your folktales and then interviewed your great-grandmother about her experiences growing up. And had all of this information recorded, and wrote it down, and then scrambled it and stuck it in various different ways and made kind of a collage out of it,” Holton said. “It’s offensive.”

Based on this, I imagine they did some kind of machine translation with a program trained on a very limited corpus.

[galaxyrocker]

Reminded me a bit of this article too: https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2023/0111 ... ngs-typos/ (which is for Irish, not Native Alaskan languages, but arguably they are in similar straits)

Was about to say, this sounds all-too-familiar from an Irish perspective. Sometimes even paid, professional translators don't know the language well enough!