Babel Fish (website) {{For|the fictional fish in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series|Babel fish}} {{Infobox Website | name = Babel Fish | logo = [[Image:Babelfish-right.gif]] | screenshot = | caption = | url = http://babelfish.yahoo.com/ | commercial = | type = Translation service | language = | registration = | owner = [[Yahoo]] | author = [[AltaVista]] | launch date = | current status = | revenue = }} '''Babel Fish''' is a [[World Wide Web|web]]-based application on [[Yahoo!]] that [[machine translation|machine translates]] text or web pages from one of several languages into another. Developed by [[AltaVista]], the application is named after the fictional animal used for instantaneous [[language]] [[translation]] in [[Douglas Adams]]'s series ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]].'' In turn the fish is a reference to the [[biblical]] account of the city of [[Babel]] and the [[Confusion of tongues|various languages]] said to have arisen there. The translation technology for Babel Fish is provided by [[SYSTRAN]], whose technology also powers a number of other sites and portals. It translates among [[English language|English]], [[Simplified Chinese]], [[Traditional Chinese]], [[Dutch language|Dutch]], [[French language|French]], [[German language|German]], [[Greek language|Greek]], [[Italian language|Italian]], [[Japanese language|Japanese]], [[Korean language|Korean]], [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]], [[Russian language|Russian]], and [[Spanish language|Spanish]]. The service makes no claim to produce a perfect translation. A number of humour sites have sprung up that use the Babel Fish service to translate back and forth between one or more languages (a so-called [[round-trip translation]]). After a long existence at babelfish.altavista.com, the site was moved on May 9 2008 to babelfish.yahoo.com. ==See also== * [[Comparison of machine translation applications]] * [[Windows Live Translator]] * [[Google Translate]] * [[Asia Online]] ==External links== * [http://babelfish.yahoo.com Yahoo! Babel Fish Translation Service] * [http://www.tashian.com/multibabel/ Lost in Translation (round-trip translation)] ==References== {{reflist}} [[Category:Machine translation]] [[Category:Yahoo!]] [[ar:سمكة بابل (موقع)]] [[da:Babelfish]] [[de:Babelfish]] [[id:Babel fish]] [[nl:Babel Fish]] [[no:Babel Fish]] [[zh:寶貝魚]]