Babel Fish ©Jenny M. Parks jmparks.elfwood.com

Babel Fish Translation is a web-based application developed by AltaVista (now taken over by Yahoo) which machine translates text or web pages from one of several languages into another. The translation technology for Babel Fish is provided by SYSTRAN, whose technology also powers a number of other sites and portals.

Currently there are 36 translation options including Chinese Traditional to English, Chinese Simplified to English, English to Chinese Traditional and English to Chinese Simplified.

It also allows you to input a URL and translate an entire website. This function hasn’t always worked well for me but when it works it’s great.

Of course this is just a machine translation and should only be used to get the gist of the information being translated.

The Babel fish is a fictional species in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams. It is introduced in the first novel of the series as a species of fish that can instantly translate any language to any other language. The word Babel is a borrowed reference to the biblical account of the city of Babel and the various languages which were said to have arisen there.

http://babelfish.yahoo.com/