Ray Saintonge wrote:
The last thing that Wiktionary needs is a listing of
automated
translation. Of course the English Wiktionary is "English-centric".
What else did you expect? It is first a dictionary, and only secondly
a book of translations. Still, to choose one example and say that
there is a 1:1 correspondence between the words of two languages
represnts a totally naïve view of language.
Really? Here's what I tried: clicked on "Random Page" 10 times. Here are
the results:
1.
http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Pronunciaci%C3%B3n
2.
http://wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%92%AD
3.
http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Mayoress
4.
http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Bijutel
5.
http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Decibel
6.
http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Balul
7.
http://wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%97%86
8.
http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Airtight
9.
http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Brush
10.
http://wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%95%9A
There is not a single one hit in the ten above which isn't appropriate
for automated parsing:
* No. 1 would be reverse translated from Spanish to English (note that
http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Pronounciation doesn't exist).
* No. 2, 3, 7 and 10 would be completely skipped in parsing because they
don't contain any proper translations.
* No. 4 and 6 would be reverse translated from Volapük to English (note
there is no mention of Balul at
http://wiktionary.org/wiki/January, and
http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Jeweller doesn't exist).
* No. 5, 8 and 9 would be properly translated to the respective
languages for which translations are available.
What would be wrong with this? What counter-examples do you have in mind?
--Gutza