On-Line Translation Services for the
Lao Language
Vincent BERMENT
GETA-CLIPS (IMAG)
INALCO
France
Abstract:
Thanks to a continuous effort made over the last 30 years, the Lao system of
writing has now achieved a satisfactory level of computerization: mature fonts,
input tools and word processors are now available and the Lao Unicode is used on
the Internet. So a lot of people is now waiting for what may be looked as a
natural suite of this computerization effort: a high quality machine translation
service that would allow the Lao people to read English, Chinese, Japanese,
French or whatsoever language, translated in their own one.
In contrast with the pioneering age where isolated individuals could offer
complete solutions, the much more complex machine translation step must rely on
groups of linguists and computer scientists to get through. For example, the
order of magnitude for producing a good quality Lao-English / English-Lao
machine translation system is estimated to 50 men-years (Lafourcade, 1994), only
for the lingware, when an add-in such as LaoWord which provides a full set of
word processing functions only requires about 5 men-years. So even if the
methods used are adapted to the computerization of minority languages (Berment,
2004), it may take time before a good translation software is available for the
Lao language.
On the way of this highly desirable future, an interesting translation support
can be brought to professional and occasional translators by simpler tools
mostly based on the technology developed for word processors. In this paper, we
present LaoTrans, a set of on-line translation services that offers, for the
first time, a translation support on the Web (dictionary, word for word
translation of texts). Doing so, we will see how the reuse of a technology
previously developed dramatically eased the realization of this new software.
Then, looking towards the future, we will also show how the LaoTrans experience
can contribute to the design of a full machine translation service.