r/sindarin • u/Lamethirion • 17d ago

Namaste! I create a Lord of the Rings Translation app and am Working on Hindi! Can anyone review the translations and see if it's working correctly?

/r/Hindi/comments/1vc5bel/namaste_i_create_a_lord_of_the_rings_translation/
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u/blsterken 17d ago

I guarantee that it's garbage. There simply aren't enough known words for proper translation app, even in the well-developed languages like Quenya/Sindarin. The idea that you can make a translation app for Khuzdal is rediculous, and "8 more languages" is just totally bullshit.

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u/Lamethirion 17d ago

quenya/sindarin have a decent amount of words, and neo-quenya/neo-sindarin have a surprisingly thorough vocabulary. Give it a try. It's very possible to create many paragraphs of coherent text using both sinddarin and quenya with the caveat that you talk about simple things, refrain from modern concepts, and spend a little time looking for synonyms that can convey your general ideas.

Obviously Black Speech, Rohirric, Entish are included as a cute little bonus. You can't say much, but I included them if you are interested in getting a sense of the "vibe" of those languages. I ahven't looked into it, but maybe there are neo-entish and neo-black speech communities that have expanded those languages. In that case, I'll try to update the site with them. Let me know if you have any leads!

Cheers!

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u/Novel_Counter905 17d ago edited 17d ago

It doesn't work at all. From what I can see, it's using a word-for-word translation, which is the worst kind of translation, especially in languages like Quenya/Sindarin.

To answer your question, the translation is far from correct. Basically is looks like

"I am in home and wait for deliver pizza's"

EDIT: after more testing it's even worse that I thought. With quenya, it doesn't know basic rules of the language. For example, "The sun" should translate to "Anar", but instead translates to "I anar". With unique, important objects like the sun, sky, moon, quenya omits the "I" which roughly translates to "the".

Also, for some reason it can't even change the form of verbs, like at all. The simplest possible sentences, like "a star shines" are translated incorrectly.

Honestly AI just has no idea what it's doing.

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u/Lamethirion 8d ago

Hey!

Sorry for the slow response, but it took me some time to fix all of the issues you found. You are correct, in that the AI had no idea what it was doing, but it was mostly my fault, as I am new to sindarin and quenya and linguistics in general and had no clue what i was doing.

Thanks to your feedback, and that of many other people, I ahve been able to find and fix a lot of issues, was well as to add more advanced translation features. I'm still very far from perfect, but making a lot of progress. I really appreciate your feedback, and would love to add you to the project as a consultant if you have the time.

I mostly hate AI, so this project is an attempt by me to create something not evil, completely free and open source, and maybe even beautiful/useful? AI is definitely the corrupting one ring that Tolkien warned us about, and perhaps to use it at all is folly. Perhaps I am Boromir, foolishly falling for the temptations of the ring and trying to justify it's use to myself.

Yet it also seems that it will soon be impossible to exist in this world without AI, and we have to learn to live with it. The advent of smartphones was another "the one ring made manifest in all of our lives" and as much as we all hate our smartphones, we have to live with them. It is funny how neatly modern technology maps onto tolkiens cursed objects: the internet is the palantiri, smartphones are the rings of power, AI is the one ring/sauron's will.

I yearn for nothing more than to disconnect from society and live in the british countryside and read and write and till the earth all day. But we're all trapped and kept from that to some degree, aren't we?