Automatic Language Translation

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In an earlier essay Anthony Oettinger envisaged translators “relieved by automatic drudges” free to concentrate on interpretation. He now provides a basis both for investigating fundamental technical aspects of automatic translation and for the general study of mathematical linguistics.

Discussion of available machines, techniques of coding, and the aims of translation, leads to analysis of lexical problems. The author, as Joshua Whatmough says, provides firsthand knowledge of three disciplines, surpassing a committee “since committees do not have ideas.”