I quite agree, there's something odd going on.
If you look at Google's translation of God save the Queen into Irish
God save our gracious Queen
Long live our noble Queen
God save the Queen
Send her victorious
Happy and glorious
Long to reign over us
God save the Queen
you get
Dia dár sábháil bhFiann gracious
Fada beo ár Banríona Noble
God Save the Queen
Seol a victorious
Sona agus glorious
Fada chun reign os cionn linn
God Save the Queen
'Queen' is translated in two lines with different words, and in two
lines not translated at all. Worse still the translator has'nt coped
with noble, victorious, glorious.
These are perfectly common adjectives and the last two can easily
formed from victory and glory. Or at least they can in Scottish
Gaelic, and whilst I'm not familiar with modern Irish, I don't suppose
it's that different apart from the orthography.
Perhaps Sean can enlighten us.
Merry Christmas ! Nollaig Chridheil (Nollaig Shona according to Google
translate).
On Dec 25, 5:43 pm, Seán Ó Briain wrote:
> I'm sorry but that doesn't make sense - because statistically, it
> would never be used in the same context as Save the Queen. The British
> National Anthem is "God Save the Queen" - and not even "Save the
> Queen".
>
> If you look at Das Deutschlandlied - "The Song of Germany", it
> translates just fine. So why exactly would the Irish national anthem,
> which has absolutely nothing to do with the British national anthem be
> confused?
>
> I would argue that either someone has purposely done this, or someone
> is trolling and submitting invalid contributions. In any case, it is
> disrespectful. It would be like using a Nazi song, in place of the
> Israeli national anthem. It still has not been corrected, and I have
> repeatedly submitted contributions to correct this. Why have they not
> been accepted? I am an Irish language speaker, but it appears as
> though Google is not willing to accept valid translations over
> cunningly, sick translations.
>
> On Dec 24, 11:11 am, Harald Korneliussen wrote:
>
> > Statistical translation, this is the sort of errors it makes. See, you
> > Irish tend to use the phrase "Amhrán na BhFiann" in similar places
> > that English speakers use "God Save the Queen". The translator only
> > sees statistical patterns, so it thinks it means the same thing (in a
> > sense it does, since it can mean "the national anthem of my country").
>
> > So, no one is being malicious here. Neither Google or their users have
> > taught the translator that (wrong) translation. It has picked it up on
> > its own. To see the same effect in action, try translating "Årø
> > lufthavn" (that's the airport outside Molde, Norway) from Norwegian to
> > English.
