Posts Tagged ‘linguistics’
Japanese Create A Mutant Mouse That Tweets Like a Bird
The researchers didn’t engineer the mouse to tweet, though there was some genetic tinkering that led to the singing mouse’s arrival. The lab created the mouse as part of its “Evolved Mouse Project,” which genetically modifies mice to be prone to miscopying DNA. From there, the outcomes are left to chance as the team has cross-bred the mutation prone mice for generations.
According to the lead researcher at the lab, they were checking their newborn mice one at a time and one day came across a mouse that was singing just like a bird – a point that is significant beyond being both weird and interesting. Scientists already know that birds don’t sing haphazardly, but in a way that is governed by a set of linguistic rules that form strings of sounds. In other words it’s ordered noise, much like human speech.
The team now hopes their tweeting mice will lend insight on how human language evolved over history. Mice, after all, are much closer to humans in terms of biology and brain, and by seeing how they chirp in the company of other mice and when placed in certain situations, they might learn how human linguistics came to be as well as how they were shared among groups.
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Microsoft’s Engkoo Scans the Web to Teach Itself How to Teach You Languages
By drawing on the ever-evolving organism that is the Internet, Engkoo (loosely meaning “English vault” in Chinese) should be able to stay abreast of changes in colloquialisms and idioms in both the source language and the one it is translating to. In theory, it should also be able to catch errors or mistranslations easier, since an error is unlikely to be prevalent across the entire Web.
When a user searches for a word or sentence in either language – Microsoft plans to adapt the system for other languages but this initial phase is focused on Chinese-to-English translation – the software driving Engkoo searches through the database for the relevant data and draws upon statistics to translate as accurately as possible. Where possible it links to the sources where it drew the initial data from and often can provide example sentences for a word or phrase.
Engkoo is also a multimedia experience. Computer generated audio translations exist for many English words and sentences to help Chinese speakers with their pronunciation, and researchers are cultivating a video dictation library so users can see the way native speakers’ lips move as they enunciate.
Next up? Ultrasound images that show the movement of the tongue inside the mouth, a critical step in learning pronunciation but one that is often hidden from plain view. Researchers are already gathering ultrasound data for the library, but those of you who find that kind of imagery less-than-savory, worry not; the black-and-white ultrasounds will be converted into cartoon animation to make them a bit more – how do you say? – palatable.
There’s also a mobile app in the works that will run on Windows phones – other mobile OS types are being considered – that allows for translation on the go. Which means perhaps we’re seeing the first real baby steps toward the universal translator you can keep in your pocket for real-time translation of any language into your own.
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