Babel fish

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The Babel Fish ( English Babelfish ) is a fictional creatures from the novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams , which is now a well-known symbol of machine-based translation systems has become. The popular Internet translation service Babel Fish was named after the model from Adams' novel. The Babel fish is described in the novel as a small creature that can be inserted into the ear and the support an understanding of all spoken languages allows. Adams explains this concept by depicting the Babylonian fish as a symbiote that feeds on external brain waves and excretes their meaning in the form of telepathic energy directly into the wearer's brain . Douglas Adams based the name Babelfisch on the biblical story of the Tower of Babel and the subsequent Babylonian confusion of languages from the Book of Genesis .

The absurd depiction of the Babylonian fish is a parody of Adams on the implausibility of the translation machines described in science fiction literature . In general, the variety of languages ​​has been viewed by science fiction writers as merely an annoying inconvenience and the emphasis on linguistic difficulties as not reader-friendly. Accordingly, translation machines in literature mostly acted as a mere contrivance in order not to have to deal with the problems of communication between different species. Even the utopia of linguistic unity, which goes back to the Bible and implies the idea that the mere overcoming of language barriers simultaneously leads to mutual understanding, is also satirically adopted by Adams : In his novel, with the help of the Babylonian fish, he does away with the post-Babylonian state of language confusion on, but he lets this being cause "more and bloodier wars" "than anyone else in the whole history of creation".

See also

Individual evidence

  1. Christos J. Moschovitis: Chronology (= The Internet: A Historical Encyclopedia. Volume 3). Edited by Hilary W. Poole. ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara, Calif. 2005, ISBN 1-85109-659-0 , p. 177.
  2. ^ Brian Stableford : Science Fact and Science Fiction: An Encyclopedia. Routledge, London 2006, ISBN 0-415-97460-7 ; CRC Press, 2006, ISBN 1-281-08219-8 , p. 271.
  3. ^ Marita Sturken, Douglas Thomas, Sandra Ball-Rokeach: Technological Visions: The Hopes and Fears that Shape New Technologies. Temple University Press, Philadelphia, PA 2004, ISBN 1-59213-227-8 , p. 190.
  4. Ulrike Sal: The biography of the "Whore Babylon". Studies on the intertextuality of the Babylonian texts in the Bible (= research on the Old Testament. 2nd series. Volume 6). Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2004, ISBN 3-16-148431-2 , p. 159 (Zugl .: Bochum, Univ., Diss., 2003).