Editing Machine translation (section)

==History==
{{Main|History of machine translation}}

===Origins===
The origins of machine translation can be traced back to the work of [[Al-Kindi]], a ninth-century Arabic [[cryptographer]] who developed techniques for systemic language translation, including [[cryptanalysis]], [[frequency analysis]], and [[probability]] and [[statistics]], which are used in modern machine translation.<ref>{{Cite web |last=DuPont |first=Quinn |date=January 2018 |title=The Cryptological Origins of Machine Translation: From al-Kindi to Weaver |url=http://amodern.net/article/cryptological-origins-machine-translation/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190814061915/http://amodern.net/article/cryptological-origins-machine-translation/ |archive-date=14 August 2019 |access-date=2 September 2019 |website=Amodern}}</ref> The idea of machine translation later appeared in the 17th century. In 1629, [[René Descartes]] proposed a universal language, with equivalent ideas in different tongues sharing one symbol.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Knowlson |first=James |title=Universal Language Schemes in England and France, 1600-1800 |date=1975 |publisher=University of Toronto Press |isbn=0-8020-5296-7 |location=Toronto}}</ref>

The idea of using digital computers for translation of natural languages was proposed as early as 1947 by England's [[Andrew Donald Booth|A. D. Booth]]<ref>{{Cite book |last=Booth |first=Andrew D. |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_computers-and-people_1953-05_2_4/page/n8/ |title=Computers and Automation 1953-05: Vol 2 Iss 4 |date=1953-05-01 |publisher=Berkeley Enterprises |pages=6 |language=en |chapter=MECHANICAL TRANSLATION}}</ref> and [[Warren Weaver]] at [[Rockefeller Foundation]] in the same year. "The memorandum written by [[Warren Weaver]] in 1949 is perhaps the single most influential publication in the earliest days of machine translation."<ref>{{cite book
   |url=https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/eaa9/ccf94b4d129c26faf45a1353ffcbbe9d4fda.pdf
   |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200228015454/https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/eaa9/ccf94b4d129c26faf45a1353ffcbbe9d4fda.pdf
   |url-status=dead
   |archive-date=2020-02-28
   |chapter=Warren Weaver and the launching of MT |via=[[Semantic Scholar]]  |author=J. Hutchins|title=Early Years in Machine Translation |series=Studies in the History of the Language Sciences |year=2000 |volume=97 |page=17 |doi=10.1075/sihols.97.05hut |isbn=978-90-272-4586-1 |s2cid=163460375 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web
|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Warren-Weaver
|title=Warren Weaver, American mathematician
|date=July 13, 2020
|access-date=7 August 2020
|archive-date=6 March 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210306061225/https://www.britannica.com/biography/Warren-Weaver
|url-status=live
}}</ref> Others followed. A demonstration was made in 1954 on the [[APEXC]] machine at [[Birkbeck, University of London|Birkbeck College]] ([[University of London]]) of a rudimentary translation of English into French. Several papers on the topic were published at the time, and even articles in popular journals (for example an article by Cleave and Zacharov in the September 1955 issue of ''[[Wireless World]]'').  A similar application, also pioneered at Birkbeck College at the time, was reading and composing [[Braille]] texts by computer.

===1950s===
The first researcher in the field, [[Yehoshua Bar-Hillel]], began his research at MIT (1951). A [[Georgetown University]] MT research team, led by Professor Michael Zarechnak, followed (1951) with a public demonstration of its [[Georgetown-IBM experiment]] system in 1954. MT research programs popped up in Japan<ref>{{cite book|last1=上野|first1=俊夫|title=パーソナルコンピュータによる機械翻訳プログラムの制作|date=1986-08-13|publisher=(株)ラッセル社|location=Tokyo|isbn=494762700X|page=16|language=ja|quote=わが国では1956年、当時の電気試験所が英和翻訳専用機「ヤマト」を実験している。この機械は1962年頃には中学1年の教科書で90点以上の能力に達したと報告されている。(translation (assisted by [[Google Translate]]): In 1959 Japan, the [[w:jp:電気試験所|National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology]](AIST) tested the proper English-Japanese translation machine ''Yamato'', which reported in 1964 as that reached the power level over the score of 90-point on the textbook of first grade of junior hi-school.)}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web | url=http://museum.ipsj.or.jp/computer/dawn/0027.html | title=機械翻訳専用機「やまと」-コンピュータ博物館 | access-date=4 April 2017 | archive-date=19 October 2016 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161019171540/http://museum.ipsj.or.jp/computer/dawn/0027.html | url-status=live }}</ref> and Russia (1955), and the first MT conference was held in London (1956).<ref name="Nye">{{cite journal|last1=Nye|first1=Mary Jo|title=Speaking in Tongues: Science's centuries-long hunt for a common language|journal=Distillations|date=2016|volume=2|issue=1|pages=40–43|url=https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/magazine/speaking-in-tongues|access-date=20 March 2018|archive-date=3 August 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200803130801/https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/magazine/speaking-in-tongues|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Babel">{{cite book|last1=Gordin|first1=Michael D.|title=Scientific Babel: How Science Was Done Before and After Global English|date=2015|publisher=University of Chicago Press|location=Chicago, Illinois|isbn=9780226000299}}</ref>

[[David G. Hays]] "wrote about computer-assisted language processing as early as 1957" and "was project leader on computational linguistics
at [[RAND Corporation|Rand]] from 1955 to 1968."<ref>{{cite news
|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]
|quote=wrote about computer-assisted language processing as early as 1957.. was project leader on computational linguistics at Rand from 1955 to 1968.
|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/28/obituaries/david-g-hays-66-a-developer-of-language-study-by-computer.html
|title=David G. Hays, 66, a Developer Of Language Study by Computer
|author=Wolfgang Saxon
|date=July 28, 1995
|access-date=7 August 2020
|archive-date=7 February 2020
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200207035914/https://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/28/obituaries/david-g-hays-66-a-developer-of-language-study-by-computer.html
|url-status=live
}}</ref>

===1960–1975===
Researchers continued to join the field as the Association for Machine Translation and Computational Linguistics was formed in the U.S. (1962) and the National Academy of Sciences formed the Automatic Language Processing Advisory Committee (ALPAC) to study MT (1964). Real progress was much slower, however, and after the [[ALPAC|ALPAC report]] (1966), which found that the ten-year-long research had failed to fulfill expectations, funding was greatly reduced.<ref name="ueno">{{cite book
|last1=上野 |first1=俊夫 |title=パーソナルコンピュータによる機械翻訳プログラムの制作 |date=1986-08-13 |publisher=(株)ラッセル社|isbn=494762700X|page=16|location=Tokyo|language=ja}}</ref> According to a 1972 report by the Director of Defense Research and Engineering (DDR&E), the feasibility of large-scale MT was reestablished by the success of the Logos MT system in translating military manuals into Vietnamese during that conflict.

The French Textile Institute also used MT to translate abstracts from and into French, English, German and Spanish (1970); Brigham Young University started a project to translate Mormon texts by automated translation (1971).

===1975 and beyond===
[[SYSTRAN]], which "pioneered the field under contracts from the U.S. government"<ref name="MT1998.EmptyAtlantic">{{Cite magazine |last=Budiansky |first=Stephen  |date=December 1998 |title=Lost in Translation |magazine=[[Atlantic Magazine]] |pages=81–84}}</ref> in the 1960s, was used by Xerox to translate technical manuals (1978). Beginning in the late 1980s, as [[computation]]al power increased and became less expensive, more interest was shown in [[statistical machine translation|statistical models for machine translation]]. MT became more popular after the advent of computers.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Conceptual Information Processing|last=Schank|first=Roger C.|date=2014|publisher=Elsevier|isbn=9781483258799|location=New York|pages=5}}</ref> SYSTRAN's first implementation system was implemented in 1988 by the online service of the [[La Poste (France)|French Postal Service]] called Minitel.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Machine Translation and the Information Soup: Third Conference of the Association for Machine Translation in the Americas, AMTA'98, Langhorne, PA, USA, October 28–31, 1998 Proceedings|last1=Farwell|first1=David|last2=Gerber|first2=Laurie|last3=Hovy|first3=Eduard|date=2003-06-29|publisher=Springer|isbn=3540652590|location=Berlin|pages=276}}</ref> Various computer based translation companies were also launched, including Trados (1984), which was the first to develop and market Translation Memory technology (1989), though this is not the same as MT. The first commercial MT system for Russian / English / German-Ukrainian was developed at Kharkov State University (1991).

By 1998, "for as little as $29.95" one could "buy a program for translating in one direction between English and a major European language of
your choice" to run on a PC.<ref name=MT1998.EmptyAtlantic/>

MT on the web started with SYSTRAN offering free translation of small texts (1996) and then providing this via [[Babel Fish (website)|AltaVista Babelfish]],<ref name=MT1998.EmptyAtlantic/> which racked up 500,000 requests a day (1997).<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://digital.com/about/babel-fish/ |title=Babel Fish: What Happened To The Original Translation Application?: We Investigate |last1=Barron |first1=Brenda |date=November 18, 2019 |website=Digital.com |language=en-US |access-date=2019-11-22 |archive-date=20 November 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191120032732/https://digital.com/about/babel-fish/ |url-status=live }}</ref> The second free translation service on the web was [[Lernout & Hauspie]]'s GlobaLink.<ref name=MT1998.EmptyAtlantic/> ''Atlantic Magazine'' wrote in 1998 that "Systran's Babelfish and GlobaLink's Comprende" handled
"Don't bank on it" with a "competent performance."<ref>and gave other examples too</ref>

[[Franz Josef Och]] (the future head of Translation Development AT Google) won DARPA's speed MT competition (2003).<ref>{{Cite book
|title=Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Technology |last=Chan |first=Sin-Wai
|date=2015 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9780415524841 |location=Oxon |pages=385}}</ref> More innovations during this time included MOSES, the open-source statistical MT engine (2007), a text/SMS translation service for mobiles in Japan (2008), and a mobile phone with built-in speech-to-speech translation functionality for English, Japanese and Chinese (2009). In 2012, Google announced that [[Google Translate]] translates roughly enough text to fill 1 million books in one day.