Editing Dictionary-based machine translation (section)

== History of Machine Translation ==
{{Main|Machine translation}}
{{Off topic|date=August 2020}}
The history of machine translation (MT) starts around the
mid 1940s. Machine translations was probably the first time computers were
used for non-numerical purposes. Machine translation enjoyed a fierce research interest
during the 1950s and 1960s, which was followed by a stagnation until the 1980s.<ref name=":5">{{Cite book|chapter = Machine Translation: History|date = January 2006|last = J. Hutchins|doi=10.1016/B0-08-044854-2/00937-8|journal=Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics|pages=375–383|isbn = 9780080448541}}</ref>
After the 1980s, machine translation became mainstream again, enjoying an even
bigger popularity than in the 1950s and 1960s as well as rapid expansion,
largely based on the text corpora approach.

The basic concept of machine translation can be traced back
to the 17th century in the speculations surrounding "universal
languages and mechanical dictionaries".<ref name=":5" /> The first true practical machine
translation suggestions were made in 1933 by Georges Artsrouni in France and Petr
Trojanskij in Russia. Both had patented machines that they believed could be
used for translating meaning from a language to another. "In June 1952, the
first MT conference was convened at MIT by Yehoshua Bar-Hillel".<ref name=":5" /> On 7 January 1954 a Machine Translation convention in New York, sponsored by IBM,
served at popularizing the field. The conventions popularity came from the
translation of short English sentences into Russian. This engineering feat
mesmerised the public and the governments of both the US and USSR who
therefore stimulated large-scale funding in machine translation research.<ref name=":5" />
Although the enthusiasm for machine translation was extremely high, technical
and knowledge limitations led to disillusions regarding what machine
translation was actually capable of doing, at least at that time. Thus machine
translation lost in popularity until the 1980s, when advances in linguistics
and technology helped revitalise the interest in this field.