6 ms·

How AI could help us with ancient languages like Sumerian

123 points by nkurz 8y ago

harveywi 8y ago
How AI could help us with anything, really.
thebooktocome 8y ago
AI approaches to "reading" the Voynich manuscript have not been terribly successful.
- ahje 8y ago
  In this case, the script is not a problem. The article is about bulk machine translation of a lot ancient texts.
  - rvense 8y ago
    And unlike the Voynich manuscript, here we have known good translations to start from.
- Kiro 8y ago
  It's probably because it's most likely nonsense and can't be read.
  - sneakernets 8y ago
    It likely is nonsense, given that its symbols' frequencies don't match up with other natural (or constructed, for that matter) language word distributions. Either the manuscript is encrypted and salted, or it's a big fat phony.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
- empath75 8y ago
  Sumerian has already been translated, so it’s a labor saving problem.
- JoeDaDude 8y ago
  Perhaps that is yet another indication that the Voynich Manuscript is a hoax.
sakri 8y ago
People use the 'set in stone' phrase all the time, it puts a different spin on it when 6000 years later, we are still analyzing some poor guys tax returns. This is fascinating stuff, too bad data mining the mundane lives of social media users pays better.
- barrow-rider 8y ago
  Can't sell a Sumerian a new model iPhone. And to play devil's advocate here, what does this old data potentially get us? Like OP said, it may just be some dude's tax info. Nice to have, and maybe useful for painting a picture of day-to-day life, but that's not going to do anything for climate change, stagnant wages, or Mutually Assured Destruction?
  - nf05papsjfVbc 8y ago
    If I'm not mistaken, generalising your question leads to: "What is the use of studying history?"
    - minikites 8y ago
      Attitudes like the one expressed in the comment you're replying to is exactly why STEM majors should have a required humanities/liberal arts component.
      - wl 8y ago
        I've seen this attitude in engineering majors who have been required to take humanities and liberal arts classes. Maybe such a requirement helps some people, but I suspect resentment is a more common outcome amongst people already predisposed to devalue the humanities.
        minikites 8y ago
        I've seen that happen personally, but I think that's a failure of the instructor or the system (or both), not of the subject matter itself. The liberal arts should be fascinating if taught in a compelling way. It's the story about what it means to be a person, which is the only universal activity of humans both present and past.
acheron 8y ago
I tracked down a book earlier this year (via inter library loan) called Archaic Bookkeeping about some of the oldest engravings found, mostly pre-cuneiform. This was essentially the invention of arithmetic, accounting, and writing all at once. It’s amazing stuff. The book was written in the early 90s and touched on the earliest attempts to have computer assistance in translation, done throughout the 80s. It would be great to see what today’s techniques could do.
gaius 8y ago
Maybe Sumerian and Enochian are best left unspoken.
- krapp 8y ago
  Enochian isn't a real language, though, it's just something John Dee made up while tripping on mercury or something.
- leke 8y ago
  Sumerian is a pretty cool language. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8H-Vhsma7ck https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8H-Vhsma7ck
- pizza 8y ago
  > Hey, Hiro, the black-and-white guy says, you want to try some Snow Crash?
KasianFranks 8y ago
NLP(NLU, NLI, NLG) is the tip of the spear when it comes to AI and has its roots in the study of Epigraphy [1] which is essentially the study of ancient inscriptions and symbols. Analyzing human language and thought surrounding objects is key to advances in AI. The study of epigraphy is the microscope while the study of human aging, extending human lifespan is the telescope that lets us see the stars in the future. With Epigraphy you can change dates in human history which changes a lot of what we thought we knew about ourselves. The best NLP is based on principles that underpin epigraphy combined with neuroscience and research in cognition. The interesting part is that unbeknownst to most, the study of the past (epigraphy/NLP) is being used to solve for the future (space biosciences - LET radition, DNA repair, extending human lifespan making real space travel possible for the purpose of inhabiting other planets). Sounds out there, but this is what we work on at LBNL/DOE/DARPA/NASA related to predicting new interactions between proteins, genes etc. Fun fact: Epigraphy, ciphers/deciphering, info security, cryptography are all related [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigraphy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigraphy [2] From the epigraphy mailing list: "Georges Depeyrot <Georges.depeyrot@ehess.fr> To: epigraphy@yahoogroups.com Sep 20, 2003 at 10:28 PM Dear List members, We are publishing books on numismatics and economy (see Moneta <http://www.cultura-net.com/moneta/content.htm> http://www.cultura-net.com/moneta/content.htm>). I just want to inform you that one of the books in press is devoted to "coins, money and epigraphy, 1st - 3rd c." (author, Pr St. Mrozek, Uty of Gdansk, Poland). It will concern the Roman Empire."
nmstoker 8y ago
This is partially what it was implied David from Prometheus was doing at the start of the film (although he appeared to be working back from modern pronunciation to earlier proto-languages too)
- cronix 8y ago
  Yes! I'm pretty sure it was based off of Sitchin's translations of the tablets, and David was looking for the alien race that created the human hybrids (us). It's actually very close to the Adam and Eve story, like how the flood tale in the tablets mirror the Great Flood in the Bible. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zecharia_Sitchin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zecharia_Sitchin
vectorEQ 8y ago
cuneiform has a lot of data, i would be more interested though in things that people claim to have translated already, like for instance Egyptian hieroglyphs where theres a solid body convinced it's all correctly translated ,but some parties dispute some basic symbols which change the meanings of texts dramatically.
davidw 8y ago
Skynet trained on ancient Sumerian texts... I like the potential storyline.
- airstrike 8y ago
  Neal Stephenson is proven right one more time...
mcguire 8y ago
In addition to the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative, there is also the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/ http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/. (A nice example: "The advice of a supervisor to a younger scribe", transliteration: http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=c.5.1.3&display=Crit&charenc=gcirc http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=c.5.1.3&..., translation: http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.5.1.3 http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.5.1.3 .) There are three problems with machine translation of cuneiform texts (Problem 0 is accumulating enough pieces of a text to make it worthwhile[1]): The first is reading the signs on the tablet, which is probably incomplete and damaged. Further, some scribes weren't all that spectacular; IIRC, the early stages of Assyriology benefited because of the early discovery of Ashurbanipal's library at Ninevah, where he'd put some money into ensuring the tablets were good quality. I believe there has been some work on 3D scanning of tablets, but I haven't found any major collection of them. Or of high quality photos, for that matter. The second is transliteration of the signs into usable text. The article mentioned image recognition for cylinder seals, but I'd be interested in any significant success at recognizing text. The third is translation, described in the article. This is probably the easiest; Akkadian (used in Assyria and Babylon) and Sumerian are both understood reasonably well. I think there's two useful results of this research: The general "digital humanities" giant database of people/places/things: transactions, prices, names, etc. It's possible with that to understand Mesopotamian civilization better than we do Greek or Roman. And identifying, of the giant mass of archived tablets, those that really do deserve a closer look. Like Irving Finkel's translation ("discovery" isn't the right word) of another copy of Atrahasis' flood story. [1] There's a cute story about Cyrus the Great's cylinder, I believe; one copy of it was broken either in antiquity or around the time of discovery and transportation. The two pieces wound up in Europe and America (Penn State?) until somebody very observant realized they were two parts of the same cylinder. And I'm given to believe that the British Museum has employed people to re-jigsaw the gravel at the bottom of the incoming crates of tablets back into something useful.

123 points by nkurz 8y ago

harveywi 8y ago

How AI could help us with anything, really.

thebooktocome 8y ago

AI approaches to "reading" the Voynich manuscript have not been terribly successful.

ahje 8y ago
In this case, the script is not a problem. The article is about bulk machine translation of a lot ancient texts.
- rvense 8y ago
  And unlike the Voynich manuscript, here we have known good translations to start from.
Kiro 8y ago
It's probably because it's most likely nonsense and can't be read.
- sneakernets 8y ago
  It likely is nonsense, given that its symbols' frequencies don't match up with other natural (or constructed, for that matter) language word distributions. Either the manuscript is encrypted and salted, or it's a big fat phony.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
empath75 8y ago
Sumerian has already been translated, so it’s a labor saving problem.
JoeDaDude 8y ago
Perhaps that is yet another indication that the Voynich Manuscript is a hoax.

sakri 8y ago

People use the 'set in stone' phrase all the time, it puts a different spin on it when 6000 years later, we are still analyzing some poor guys tax returns. This is fascinating stuff, too bad data mining the mundane lives of social media users pays better.

barrow-rider 8y ago
Can't sell a Sumerian a new model iPhone. And to play devil's advocate here, what does this old data potentially get us? Like OP said, it may just be some dude's tax info. Nice to have, and maybe useful for painting a picture of day-to-day life, but that's not going to do anything for climate change, stagnant wages, or Mutually Assured Destruction?
- nf05papsjfVbc 8y ago
  If I'm not mistaken, generalising your question leads to: "What is the use of studying history?"
  - minikites 8y ago
    Attitudes like the one expressed in the comment you're replying to is exactly why STEM majors should have a required humanities/liberal arts component.
    - wl 8y ago
      I've seen this attitude in engineering majors who have been required to take humanities and liberal arts classes. Maybe such a requirement helps some people, but I suspect resentment is a more common outcome amongst people already predisposed to devalue the humanities.
      - minikites 8y ago
        I've seen that happen personally, but I think that's a failure of the instructor or the system (or both), not of the subject matter itself. The liberal arts should be fascinating if taught in a compelling way. It's the story about what it means to be a person, which is the only universal activity of humans both present and past.

acheron 8y ago

I tracked down a book earlier this year (via inter library loan) called Archaic Bookkeeping about some of the oldest engravings found, mostly pre-cuneiform. This was essentially the invention of arithmetic, accounting, and writing all at once. It’s amazing stuff. The book was written in the early 90s and touched on the earliest attempts to have computer assistance in translation, done throughout the 80s. It would be great to see what today’s techniques could do.

gaius 8y ago

Maybe Sumerian and Enochian are best left unspoken.

krapp 8y ago
Enochian isn't a real language, though, it's just something John Dee made up while tripping on mercury or something.
leke 8y ago
Sumerian is a pretty cool language. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8H-Vhsma7ck https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8H-Vhsma7ck
pizza 8y ago
> Hey, Hiro, the black-and-white guy says, you want to try some Snow Crash?

KasianFranks 8y ago

NLP(NLU, NLI, NLG) is the tip of the spear when it comes to AI and has its roots in the study of Epigraphy [1] which is essentially the study of ancient inscriptions and symbols. Analyzing human language and thought surrounding objects is key to advances in AI. The study of epigraphy is the microscope while the study of human aging, extending human lifespan is the telescope that lets us see the stars in the future. With Epigraphy you can change dates in human history which changes a lot of what we thought we knew about ourselves. The best NLP is based on principles that underpin epigraphy combined with neuroscience and research in cognition. The interesting part is that unbeknownst to most, the study of the past (epigraphy/NLP) is being used to solve for the future (space biosciences - LET radition, DNA repair, extending human lifespan making real space travel possible for the purpose of inhabiting other planets). Sounds out there, but this is what we work on at LBNL/DOE/DARPA/NASA related to predicting new interactions between proteins, genes etc. Fun fact: Epigraphy, ciphers/deciphering, info security, cryptography are all related [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigraphy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigraphy [2] From the epigraphy mailing list: "Georges Depeyrot <Georges.depeyrot@ehess.fr> To: epigraphy@yahoogroups.com Sep 20, 2003 at 10:28 PM Dear List members, We are publishing books on numismatics and economy (see Moneta <http://www.cultura-net.com/moneta/content.htm> http://www.cultura-net.com/moneta/content.htm>). I just want to inform you that one of the books in press is devoted to "coins, money and epigraphy, 1st - 3rd c." (author, Pr St. Mrozek, Uty of Gdansk, Poland). It will concern the Roman Empire."

nmstoker 8y ago

This is partially what it was implied David from Prometheus was doing at the start of the film (although he appeared to be working back from modern pronunciation to earlier proto-languages too)

cronix 8y ago
Yes! I'm pretty sure it was based off of Sitchin's translations of the tablets, and David was looking for the alien race that created the human hybrids (us). It's actually very close to the Adam and Eve story, like how the flood tale in the tablets mirror the Great Flood in the Bible. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zecharia_Sitchin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zecharia_Sitchin

vectorEQ 8y ago

cuneiform has a lot of data, i would be more interested though in things that people claim to have translated already, like for instance Egyptian hieroglyphs where theres a solid body convinced it's all correctly translated ,but some parties dispute some basic symbols which change the meanings of texts dramatically.

davidw 8y ago

Skynet trained on ancient Sumerian texts... I like the potential storyline.

airstrike 8y ago
Neal Stephenson is proven right one more time...

mcguire 8y ago

In addition to the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative, there is also the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/ http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/. (A nice example: "The advice of a supervisor to a younger scribe", transliteration: http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=c.5.1.3&display=Crit&charenc=gcirc http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=c.5.1.3&..., translation: http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.5.1.3 http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.5.1.3 .) There are three problems with machine translation of cuneiform texts (Problem 0 is accumulating enough pieces of a text to make it worthwhile[1]): The first is reading the signs on the tablet, which is probably incomplete and damaged. Further, some scribes weren't all that spectacular; IIRC, the early stages of Assyriology benefited because of the early discovery of Ashurbanipal's library at Ninevah, where he'd put some money into ensuring the tablets were good quality. I believe there has been some work on 3D scanning of tablets, but I haven't found any major collection of them. Or of high quality photos, for that matter. The second is transliteration of the signs into usable text. The article mentioned image recognition for cylinder seals, but I'd be interested in any significant success at recognizing text. The third is translation, described in the article. This is probably the easiest; Akkadian (used in Assyria and Babylon) and Sumerian are both understood reasonably well. I think there's two useful results of this research: The general "digital humanities" giant database of people/places/things: transactions, prices, names, etc. It's possible with that to understand Mesopotamian civilization better than we do Greek or Roman. And identifying, of the giant mass of archived tablets, those that really do deserve a closer look. Like Irving Finkel's translation ("discovery" isn't the right word) of another copy of Atrahasis' flood story. [1] There's a cute story about Cyrus the Great's cylinder, I believe; one copy of it was broken either in antiquity or around the time of discovery and transportation. The two pieces wound up in Europe and America (Penn State?) until somebody very observant realized they were two parts of the same cylinder. And I'm given to believe that the British Museum has employed people to re-jigsaw the gravel at the bottom of the incoming crates of tablets back into something useful.