Babel Fish (website)
Template:Short description Template:Infobox website Yahoo! Babel Fish was a free Web-based machine translation service by Yahoo!. In May 2012 it was replaced by Bing Translator (now Microsoft Translator), to which queries were redirected.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Although Yahoo! has transitioned its Babel Fish translation services to Bing Translator, it did not sell its translation application to Microsoft outright.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="bing1">Template:Cite web</ref> As the oldest free online language translator,<ref name="yahoo 2">Template:Cite web</ref> the service translated text or Web pages in 36 pairs between 13 languages,<ref name="yahoo 2"/> including English, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.
The internet service derived its name from the Babel fish, a fictional species in Douglas Adams's book and radio series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that could instantly translate languages.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In turn, the name of the fictional creature refers to the biblical account of the confusion of languages that arose in the city of Babel.Template:Cn
History
On December 9, 1997, Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) and SYSTRAN S.A. launched AltaVista Translation Service at babelfish.altavista.com,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> which was developed by a team of researchers at DEC.<ref name="yahoo 2"/><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In February 2003, AltaVista was bought by Overture Services, Inc.<ref>Template:Citation</ref> In July 2003, Overture, in turn, was taken over by Yahoo!.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The web address for Babel Fish remained at babelfish.altavista.com until May 9, 2008, when the address changed to babelfish.yahoo.com.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In 2012, the Web address changed again, this time redirecting babelfish.yahoo.com to www.microsofttranslator.com when Microsoft's Bing Translator replaced Yahoo Babel Fish.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
As of June 2013, babelfish.yahoo.com no longer redirects to the Microsoft Bing Translator. Instead, it refers directly back to the main Yahoo.com page.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
See also
- Apertium
- Comparison of machine translation applications
- DeepL Translator
- Google Translate
- Jollo (discontinued)
- List of Yahoo!-owned sites and services
- Microsoft Translator
- SYSTRAN
- Yandex.Translate
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