[Sca-cooks] Computer translations of recipes

[Robin Carroll-Mann]

Several people have already explained the limitations of programs like
Babelfish, but I thought I'd demonstrate.  Here's a recipe from the
Anonymous Venetian, which is webbed on Thomas Gloning's site at:
http://staff-www.uni-marburg.de/~gloning/frati.htm

It's a recipe for Agliata, garlic sauce

First, the Italian
Agliata a ogni carne, toy l'aglio e coxilo
sotto la braxa, poi pestalo bene e mitili aglio
crudo, e una molena de pan, e specie dolçe,
e brodo; e maxena ogni cossa insema e fala
un pocho bolire e dala chalda.

Now, let's see what Babelfish makes of it:
Garlic sauce to every meat, toy the garlic and coxilo under the braxa,
then steps on it well and mitili raw garlic, and one molena de pan, and
species dolçe, and brodo;  and maxena every cossa insema and it makes
it a pocho to bolire and give it chalda.

I don't read Italian, but my knowledge of Spanish lets me see enough to
know that the untranslated words are basic words with archaic spelling.
For example (quickly checking an online dictionary), "chalda" is
probably "calda" (warm).  The last phrase would be "serve it [literally
'give it'] warm.  If I didn't know any Romance languages, I'd either be
lost, or making some big mistakes.


Brighid ni Chiarain *** mka Robin Carroll-Mann
Barony of Settmour Swamp, East Kingdom
rcmann4 at earthlink.net