Google would have more than enough parallel text to add Latin if it
wanted. The Catholic Church does produce everything offically in
Latin, and parallels it usually in six modern languages. But Latin
usage today is not solely ecclesial. Finland's state radio
broadcasting agency YLE Radio (that is, Finland's BBC) broadcasts the
news daily in Latin. Here's their Latin service webpage:
http://www.yleradio1.fi/nuntii/. Since they broadcast also in other
modern languages, this would be a great source of parallel
translations.
There is a wide selection of contemporary books translated INTO Latin.
Some of the Harry Potter books were translated into Latin, as well as
a wide selection of children's books. Google can be viewed in Latin,
and Wikipedia has a significant number of pages translated into Latin.
There is a plethora of groups across the world of Latin speakers who
converse online and on occasion get together to speak Latin.
(Wikipedia has a good page on Latin in contemporary usage:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemporary_Latin)
All of the above sources would prove more than sufficient to launch a
Google Latin translator. As can be seen by the re-emergence of this
topic in this forum, there is certainly interest in it, from a variety
of disciplines. I would vote Google look into this option as they
consider expanding the translator.
On Oct 2, 3:20 pm, Harald Korneliussen wrote:
> No idea. To add a new translator, Google needs two things: large
> amounts of aligned, parallel translations (such as UN documents
> translated into umpteen languages) and huge amounts of single-language
> sample text.
>
> I suppose they mine the sample text from the web and their scanning
> efforts, but this would yield far less forLatinthan most (all?)
> languages currently in the translator. This is one reason I don't
> expect to see many minor African languages in GT anytime soon: too
> little active net presence.
>
> Parallel text is the limiting factor for most of their translation
> efforts (or at least that's how I interpret their requests for it in
> the FAQ). ForLatin, only historical texts like the Bible, Euclid's
> elements etc. are readily available in parallel translations. The only
> ones I know of currently publishing the same documents in multiple
> languages that includeLatin, is the Catholic church. And even they
> seem to mostly do it for major publications like encyclicals.
