I am extremely thankful to be doing translation work in the time of computers, and I'm thankful for the computer programs that exist to make it easier. But sometimes people assume that programs like Google Translate can do the job for us. Unfortunately, no Indigenous Australian languages have enough written text to be on Google Translate, and even if they did, the languages are too complex. Translating meaning is not just about translating words, or even sentences, as languages and worldviews are too different from one another. To give an example, I entered an English sentence from the Bible into Google Translate and translated it into Maori.
I got: kua mate ia hei utu mo te rangatira
I then translated that back into English, and got:
he died in the place of the prince
What was the original English sentence?
It was: he has died as a ransom to set them free (from Hebrews 9:15 NIV)
Ranagtira can apparently mean prince, chief, boss, free, assertive or prosper. So it's no good translating the same word the same way every time, or the meaning will be wrong!
Give thanks for computers and for the many IT people that work on Bible translation software. (Below is a screen shot of Paratext, which scrolls multiple resources together.)
Awesome stuff Kath :).