Plena anguillis est navis volans mea

October 3, 2010 11:40 PM

Google translate has added latin as an alpha language.

At first glance, all seems well. However, as an alpha, some mistakes are to be expected. Discussion has been sparked.

Previously.

posted by Ahab (48 comments total)

Doh, refert. Latin. Capitali.
posted by Ahab at 11:45 PM on October 3, 2010

Semper ubi sub ubi.
posted by JauntyFedora at 11:46 PM on October 3, 2010 [2 favorites]

Lorem ipsum this, muthafuckaaaaa!
posted by quadog at 11:51 PM on October 3, 2010 [2 favorites]

Oh god I'm having flashbacks to tenth grade and it's not pretty.
posted by semper ubi sub ubi at 11:52 PM on October 3, 2010 [2 favorites]

Et ego scio quod me nihil scire.
posted by lee at 11:52 PM on October 3, 2010

Kottke translates lorem ipsum:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit...

translates to:

Hello world! Is here to cancel meals...

posted by grouse at 12:02 AM on October 4, 2010

Well, that was unexpected (it's actually a part of Lorem ipsum)
posted by delmoi at 12:26 AM on October 4, 2010 [2 favorites]

Asinus asinum fricat.
posted by benzenedream at 12:36 AM on October 4, 2010

Kottke maledictus velocitas.
posted by Ahab at 12:38 AM on October 4, 2010

The first thing I thought when I saw this was, "Uh oh, here come more terrible tattoos." Glad to see that the people from the last link agreed in their hair-trigger judgments!
posted by 1adam12 at 12:38 AM on October 4, 2010

This will increase the quality of tags...
posted by chavenet at 12:50 AM on October 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

Fantastic, I forsee a sharp rise in fake eruditon.

Also impressed by the way it changes dynamically as you type.

O the time   ->    O tempus
O the times    ->    O quotiens
O the times o    ->    O tempora o
O the times o the morals    ->    O tempora o mores
posted by TheophileEscargot at 1:14 AM on October 4, 2010

flag eam transferre
posted by idiopath at 1:26 AM on October 4, 2010

Agricola est in campus. Puella est pulchra. Amo alot yomamas. I would have found this quite helpful about 35 years ago.
posted by pracowity at 1:37 AM on October 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

I entered "quid pro quo", which it translated to "What Happens in Vegas".
posted by erdferkel at 2:01 AM on October 4, 2010 [3 favorites]

"PEOPLE CALLED ROMANS THEY GO THE HOUSE?!"

right?
posted by DreamerFi at 2:18 AM on October 4, 2010 [3 favorites]

Christus qualis culus. Has a nice ring to it.
posted by destrius at 2:37 AM on October 4, 2010 [2 favorites]

From Wikipedia:

Even though using "lorem ipsum" often arouses curiosity because of its resemblance to classical Latin, it is not intended to have meaning.

Worth remembering when looking for text with which to test Google.

A close English translation of the words lorem ipsum might be "pain itself" (dolorem = pain, grief, misery, suffering; ipsum = itself).

I'm pretty impressed that they made it translate to Hello World, but Google have always been good with little geek jokes.
posted by greymullet at 3:21 AM on October 4, 2010

OK, from memory…

Arma virumque cano, Trojae qui primus ab oris
Italiam fato, profugus Laviniaque venit
Litora multilet, terris illactatus sed alto
Vi superum savae memorem u nonis ab iram
multiquoquet belo, fatio genus unde Latinum
Albanique patres, ad qualtae moenia Romae.
Christ, what a mess!

And Google's translation of my memory…

I sing of arms and a man, who was the first of Troy from the shores of
Italy, by fate, a fugitive left the Trojan
Multilet the shores, lands but on high illactatus
Sava mindful of force of the gods from the wrath of u on the Nones
multiquoquet Belus, whence came the Latin manner of my fate
The Alban fathers, qualtae to the walls of Rome.

That's actually pretty good. Considering I flubbed most of the lines and scilicet-ed a bunch of words that should be separated (multi quoquet bello).
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 4:47 AM on October 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

Good deal. That will help the lawyers who want to serve the Pope. Per Dinsh Ramde When faced with similar requests the Vatican has made service difficult, time-consuming and expensive by insisting, for example, that documentation be translated into Latin, one of the Vatican’s official languages.
posted by rough ashlar at 4:50 AM on October 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

Well, at least, we'll have a new link for a bunch of Ask.me questions in the future.
posted by oddman at 5:19 AM on October 4, 2010

This is going to lead to so many botched incantations.
posted by The Whelk at 5:23 AM on October 4, 2010 [7 favorites]

His temporibus odio doloremque, Necesse medicina quae nos a pluvia.
Zelus paulo avaritia fui sententia, quae opus

I error indigent, tenere me pugnabit
I error indigent, omni nocte communibus et
I error indigent, nihil prorsum
An error volo, ut unum asinum videris
posted by nickrussell at 5:29 AM on October 4, 2010

I would have killed to have this in school.
posted by 3mendo at 5:41 AM on October 4, 2010

This is going to lead to so many botched incantations.

Hoc ego spiritu Petrus conjuro te benedicat Verona puero hoc!

Quid? Non Petri! Quis es? Cthulhu?! Arrrrrrrrgh!!!!
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:50 AM on October 4, 2010

The instant ajax word lookups are truly frigidus!
posted by 3mendo at 5:58 AM on October 4, 2010

I wonder how it translates Cattallus 16
posted by empath at 6:09 AM on October 4, 2010

I wonder how subject/verb order works in Latin, as Google seems to be having some issues with this translation, which reminds me of Yoda-speak. It ought to be something like "all things are presumed against a wrongdoer."
posted by exogenous at 6:24 AM on October 4, 2010

I would have killed to have this in school.

Yeah, I was just wondering how many kids are using Google Translate to help them do their language class translation assignments.
posted by beagle at 6:37 AM on October 4, 2010

"Alpha" is greek. Shouldn't this be an A language? The differences between the classical Latin alphabet letter names and the modern English alphabet, as far as I know:

• C is pronounced "kee"
• There is no "J"
• K is "kah"
• R is "err"
• There is no U, although V is pronounced "you"
• There is no W
• Y is pronounced roughly "ee graika"
• Z is "zeta")
posted by Plutor at 6:40 AM on October 4, 2010

"Alpha" is greek. Shouldn't this be an A language?

Most literate romans spoke greek.
posted by empath at 6:43 AM on October 4, 2010

semper ubi sub ubi
posted by Sticherbeast at 6:57 AM on October 4, 2010

Most literate romans spoke greek.

Then why do they need a Latin translator? Jeez, they shoulda been happy with what they had.
posted by Plutor at 7:17 AM on October 4, 2010

Not your father's heliocentric theory: Copernicus and stray cucumbers.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 7:21 AM on October 4, 2010

After hoc, therefore.. something else hoc.
posted by fight or flight at 8:21 AM on October 4, 2010 [2 favorites]

I've heard Latinos are a growing market. Makes sense.
posted by Bonzai at 8:25 AM on October 4, 2010

The first thing I thought when I saw this was, "Uh oh, here come more terrible tattoos."

Really? My first thought was that the Internet is about to get just that much more irritating.
posted by wreckingball at 8:28 AM on October 4, 2010

This thing is pretty hideous, you guys.

"This will end well," to pick an entirely random example, comes out as "hoc bonum finem"... which, no. Just no.

Curiously, when I started typing "well" it started to offer me "hoc finietur" as though I might like a sentence with an actual verb (will be ended) that is more or less like the one I intended! Then I typed the "e" in "well" and got "hoc dicendi" (um?) and then clearly it just gave up and decided that by "end" I must have meant a noun. And apparently I wanted the accusative. Yeah.
posted by sineala at 8:40 AM on October 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

[bene est]
posted by Johnny Assay at 9:02 AM on October 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

Hey Google, since you're adding dead languages now, why not add a language like Esperanto as well?
posted by blucevalo at 9:27 AM on October 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

Woot! This makes me happy. Now, to get off my lazy butt and practice my latin again.
posted by strixus at 9:50 AM on October 4, 2010

why not add a language like Esperanto as well?

Arguably it was never alive in the first place.
posted by IndigoJones at 11:15 AM on October 4, 2010

hoc bonum finem

"the end that this is good"

Has a sort of ring to it. Sort of.
posted by IndigoJones at 11:18 AM on October 4, 2010

Huh, if you give it "ille mi par esse videtur" you get the accurate translation "he seems to be me to be equal". Add "deo" for "ille mi par esse deo videtur", and the result is "he, my God it seems that to be equal to".

So close!
posted by kenko at 11:34 AM on October 4, 2010

"ille si fas est superare divos" is completely mangled, but "ille, si fas est, superare divos" isn't too bad.
posted by kenko at 11:35 AM on October 4, 2010

When I saw that Google Translate was offering Latin, I was hopeful that I'd get a decent Latin version of our family motto, "Make mine bacon wrapped." The result it gave was wholly unsatisfactory. (Latin scholars, feel free to chime in!)
posted by chuq at 4:58 PM on October 4, 2010

Fac mihi lardum incinctum?
posted by IndigoJones at 5:31 PM on October 4, 2010

alternatively, lardo incinctum. (something) wrapped with bacon.
posted by IndigoJones at 1:40 PM on October 5, 2010