Tamarian, a fictional language introduced in the Star Trek episode Darmok, communicates meaning through utterances of metaphorical references, such as "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra" instead of "We should work together." This work assembles a Tamarian-English dictionary of utterances from the original episode and several follow-on novels, and uses this to construct a parallel corpus of 456 English-Tamarian utterances. A machine translation system based on a large language model (T5) is trained using this parallel corpus, and is shown to produce an accuracy of 76% when translating from English to Tamarian on known utterances.

At Las Vegas gadget show CES, Google is showcasing new features of its voice-enabled digital assistant including a language translator. We use this phrase every day. Once upon a time, the word "Google" just indicated a very long number. That extends to physical products as well. But the world's most powerful search engine can do more than find things.

Long ago, as the crew of the Enterprise explored the final frontier, one man boldly did what few--if any--actors had ever done before: construct a language from scratch. But while James Doohan (Scotty) may have invented a form of Klingon on the set of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the real credit for its enduring legacy goes to linguist Marc Okrand, who started developing Klingon for Trek films in 1984, bringing constructed languages ("conlangs") to generations of new enthusiasts, from Trekkers to Dune fans to Na'vi admirers. People constructed languages before Klingon: J.R.R. Tolkien created Quenya in 1915, later used in The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings; Edgar Rice Burroughs invented Barsoomian in 1912 for A Princess of Mars; St. Hildegard of Bingen fashioned the Lingua Ignota in 1200, crediting some angels for divine inspiration. But as part of a TV show beloved by millions of viewers, Okrand's Klingon brought conlangs to the popular lexicon. Much of Klingon's appeal comes from its lexical novelty.

Microsoft today announced that its Microsoft Translator app for iOS devices can now translate text and images from one language to another even when you're offline. The app already supported this functionality on Android, and the competing Google Translate for Android could work offline, too. But in this case, Microsoft has beat Google to the punch -- Google Translate currently works offline only on Android. "Until now, iPhone users needed an Internet connection if they wanted to translate on their mobile devices. Now, by downloading the Microsoft Translator app and the needed offline language packs, iOS users can get near online-quality translations even when they are not connected to the Internet. This means no expensive roaming charges or not being able to communicate when a data connection is spotty or unavailable," the Microsoft Translator team wrote in a blog post.

Microsoft today announced that its Microsoft Translator app for iOS devices can now translate text and images from one language to another even when you're offline. The app already supported this functionality on Android, and the competing Google Translate for Android could work offline, too. But in this case, Microsoft has beat Google to the punch -- Google Translate currently works offline only on Android. "Until now, iPhone users needed an Internet connection if they wanted to translate on their mobile devices. Now, by downloading the Microsoft Translator app and the needed offline language packs, iOS users can get near online-quality translations even when they are not connected to the Internet. This means no expensive roaming charges or not being able to communicate when a data connection is spotty or unavailable," the Microsoft Translator team wrote in a blog post.