The promise of telephone translation

Natural language translation has come a long way in recent years--and still has quite a way to go--but this article is not about how such translation will be possible. It is about what will happen when it is possible; the point when natural language translation becomes ubiquitous, and is just a phone call away.

RNLT will not only allow you to speak to any other individual who has a phone, it will do so in your own voice--by reproducing your exact vocal characteristics. If you call Ariane in Paris, say, you will be able to speak to her effortlessly. She will hear your voice in French, and you will hear her voice in English--yet you will each be speaking in your native tongue. In between, powerful computer algorithms will study the tones and timbre of each voice and reproduce them exactly. The RNLT system will also translate your words, and play them back to your friend--all in near realtime.

The social implications of this technology will be two-fold. First, business and commerce will be greatly enhanced, for all forms of transaction will be more readily understood and less prone to error. Second and most importantly, global peace and stability will be greatly enhanced. Why? Throughout the ages language differences have been the primary barrier separating peoples: the "us" vs. "them" mentality. Though not impossible, it is psychologically a lot tougher to fight a war against people who speak one's own language. Although I have not made a definitive study, I would hazard to guess that most major wars have been fought between groups speaking different languages.

Who will be the first to offer such powerful RNLT systems? Here are a few possibilities:

The Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute
In Japan, a joint government and industry company Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute was established in 1986 near Osaka, and is now one of the main centres for automatic speech translation. The aim is to develop a speaker-independent real-time telephone translation system for Japanese to English and vice versa, initially for hotel reservation and conference registration transactions.

Microsoft's Natural Language Processing Group
The goal of Microsoft's Natural Language Processing (NLP) group is to design and build software that will analyze, understand, and generate languages that humans use naturally, so that eventually you will be able to address your computer as though you were addressing another person.

The British Computer Society Natural Language Translation Specialist Group
A forum to promote the automation of translation between natural languages through arranging talks, demonstrations and conferences, writing computer programs and publishing information with the goal of lowering linguistic barriers between nations.

IBM's Language Translation Group
This project deals with natural language analysis and translation by computer. Technologies used for machine translation, such as syntactic parsing and word sense disambiguation, are commonly used for other applications of natural language processing.