ToI: Will computers demolish the Tower of Babel?

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   Will computers demolish the Tower of Babel?
   SHABNAM MINWALLA

   TIMES NEWS NETWORK  [ SUNDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2002 12:14:45 AM ]

   MUMBAI: Is there more to ghar than four walls and a roof ? Does the
   word pyaar have a life outside mushy movie posters? Does khoon mean
   different things to different people? These questions may sound like
   the patter of vacuous veejays rather than the grist of bespectacled
   academia.
   But they are being posed by a group of computer scientists and
   linguists seeking serious answers=E2not just from dictionaryspouting
   scholars but from all Mumbaikars who speak Hindi.
   As part of the Universal Networking Language Project=E2an ambitious
   attempt by 18 countries to make computers multilingual =E2a team of
   researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (Powai) are busy
   teaching computers Hindi and Marathi. Before these tutorials can be
   delivered, however, they have to strip the language down to its nuts,
   bolts and basic concepts.
   And it is here that help is needed. =E2We will soon be putting up a li=
st
   of Hindi words and usages on the Net. As the language belongs to the
   community at large, we hope people will vet them and make
   suggestions,=E2=E2 says Pushpak Bhattacharyya, a computer science
   professor who heads the Centre for Indian Language Technology
   Solutions at IIT (Powai).
   Adds Debasri Chakrabarti, a doctoral student in linguistics, =E2Langua=
ge
   undergoes daily change. New words and usages are not found in
   dictionaries,which is why we want native speakers to contribute.=E2=E2
   Those who make their way to the centre=E2s webpage to discuss the
   current meaning of mrig may not realise it, but they are part of a
   worldwide movement to democratise technologies.
   =E2We have to make computers speak our language,=E2=E2 says Jitendra S=
hah, a
   professor at VJTI. Mr Bhattacharyya, who points to more than 80 per
   cent of Internet content being in English, adds, =E2People who don=E2t
   know English are at a tremendous disadvantage. In 1996, the United
   Nations initiated a project to overcome the language barrier through
   machine translation. If it succeeds, it will be possible for a
   Marathi-speaker to access English websites in his mother-tongue. Or
   for me to send an e-mail in Bengali, which my friend in Tokyo will
   read in Japanese.=E2=E2
   This doesn=E2t sound too arduous a task for a machine that is able to
   run a nuclear power plant and beat Kasparov in chess, except that
   natural languages have always eluded the straitjacket of mathematical
   formulae.
   =E2When the idea of machine translation emerged in the =E250s, it was =
seen
   as a trivial problem which involved little more than programming a
   bilingual dictionary,=E2=E2 says Mr Bhattacharyya. But this simplistic
   notion was soon dispelled. According to a famous story, the English
   sentence =E2The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak=E2 was fed int=
o
   the computer, translated into Russian, and then back into English.
   What emerged was =E2The alcohol is strong but the meat is rotten=E2, h=
e
   says. Half a century later, computers are still unable to grasp the
   subtle difference between =E2I saw the boy with the telescope=E2 and =E2=
I
   saw the boy with the bat=E2. Indeed, to explain =E2childish=E2 and
   =E2childlike=E2 to this most literal of machines is a bit like describ=
ing
   crimson and scarlet to a colourblind cow. =E2Translation is an
   unbelievably complex process, and how the human mind functions during
   translation is still unknown,=E2=E2 says Milind Malshe, an IIT profess=
or
   and well-known translator.
   Adds Mr Bhattacharyya, =E2Natural languages are rich in ambiguities an=
d
   implications =E2which computers are unable to handle. So, for example,
   our system finds technical documents simple to translate, but not
   childrens=E2 stories.=E2=E2
   At the heart of this evolving system is Universal Networking
   Language=E2a techno-Esperanto which serves as a steppingstone in the
   translation process. Take, for example, a document that needs to be
   translated from English to Hindi. =E2The computer converts English int=
o
   UNL, and then UNL into Hindi,=E2=E2 explains Mr Bhattacharyya, adding =
that
   Japanese, Indonesian, Hindi, Arabic, Italian, French, Spanish and
   Portuguese have all been successfully mated with UNL.
   =E2At IIT, we are focusing on Hindi, Marathi and English. Incidentally=
,
   we are the only research group in the world converting English into
   UNL. This is because countries like the US and England don=E2t see
   machine translation as a priority. As far as they are concerned, the
   rest of the world should learn English.=E2=E2
   In an attempt to chop languages into bytesized pieces, the IIT team
   has distilled 4,500 rules from Hindi. It is also erecting a Hindi
   Wordnet=E2a complex scaffolding of words and related concepts. =E2By
   pairing words with their synonyms, we avoid ambiguities arising out of
   multiple meanings,=E2=E2 explains Mr Bhattacharyya, pointing out that =
a
   computer confronted with ghar, for example, has no idea which of the
   nine meanings to adopt. =E2However if ghar is paired with gruh, it is
   clear that the word is being used in the astrological sense. If it is
   paired with parivar, it refers to household.=E2=E2
   These maps of words might well help to navigate the unspoken,
   metaphoric depths of language. =E2Few countries will benefit as much a=
s
   India if this dream comes true,=E2=E2 points out Mr Bhattacharyya. =E2=
After
   all, few countries have the number of languages and barriers that we
   do.=E2=E2
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