BBC - h2g2 - Babelfish, the
(1) The 'BabelFish' is a fish that translates speech from one language to another.
This fish was 'discovered' by Douglas Adams.
'You'll need to have this fish in your ear.' 'I beg your pardon?' asked Arthur.
Ford (Prefect) was holding up a small glass jar which quite clearly had a small yellow fish wriggling around in itÂ…He gasped in terror at what sounded like a man trying to gargle while fighting off a pack of wolves - From The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams.
Published by Harmony Books in 1979 Once he had the Babel Fish in his ear, Arthur understood perfectly.
The Babel Fish lives on brainwave radiation from every source but its host.
The Babel Fish reverses the problem defined by its namesake; the original Tower of Babel (according to the Bible) inspired the Deity to confuse human beings by making them unable to understand each other.
(2) The online 'Babelfish' is a service from AltaVista: http://babelfish.altavista.com/ - Babelfish and similar services tend to offer such a low quality that people find their results funny.
Altavista service translation on GEM100
Altavista service translation Simple instructions for using AltaVista Translate (Babel Fish) to translate AltaVista and any other web translation services are outside the Lawlink NSW..
To translate a webpage, you simply type in the URL of the website, DECs AltaVista Offers Free Translation Service from Newsbytes News Network in Technology provided free by LookSmart Find Articles.
This service translates words, phrases, and entire Web sites into Alta Vista's free translation service allows you to either provide a URL, Language Translation Services : In English: Translate papers on this Web site into foreign languages using BabelFish by AltaVista ..
AltaVista provides the most comprehensive search experience on the Web! AltaVista is providing a excellent free service in making the system available.
Find out how to use third-party Translation Services to view AltaVista provides the most comprehensive search experience on the Web! Welcome to the result page of the query " altavista service translation " from the leading Search If English is not your first language, this section provides a link to a translation service on the web, provided by AltaVista .
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free automatic translation at AltaVista\'s Babelfish site
How to translate into French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, or Korean from English and from those languages (and Russian) into English Go to AltaVista's Babelfish automatic translation page.
http://babelfish.altavista.com If you are interested in translating a small piece of text that doesn't include accent marks, you can simply type those words directly into their form, select the language pair you are interested in (e.g., Russian to English), and click on Translate.
Next, position your cursor over the translation form on this page or at babelfish.altavista.com.
AltaVista just added English to Japanese, Korean, and Chinese, and also Japanese, Korean, and Chinese to English.
(Given my level of ignorance of Asian languages, when I stumble upon or am pointed to a site with unfamiliar characters, I connect to Babelfish, enter the URL and test to see if it is Japanese, Chinese, or Korean).
Related article: Making your site global -- taking advantage of free translation at AltaVista A library for the price of a book.
Added capabilities at AltaVista translation site
Babelfish, http://babelfish.altavista.com, AltaVista's free translation site, just added English to Japanese, Korean, and Chinese, and also Japanese, Korean, and Chinese to English.
(Given my level of ignorance of Asian languages, when I stumble upon or am pointed to a site with unfamiliar characters, I connect to Babelfish, enter the URL and test to see if it is Japanese, Chinese, or Korean).
AltaVista recently increased the range of language pairs it handles with its free automatic translation service, and at the same time made the service far easier to use.
(This is unlike the main Babel translation page, where you can copy text -- complete with accents and non-English characters from the results box to any other document on your PC.) In addition, the translation boxes on the main Babelfish page are now much clearer and easier to use.
Click on World Home, and you arrive at a page where all of AltaVista's language and country-specific features are readily available to you.
You also see a selection of country-specific AltaVista search sites, where the search site itself is written in the local language, the content is tailored for the needs of a local audience, and the server is located in the target country for fast response time -- Australia, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden, and United Kingdom.