Publications on the history of
machine translation
by
John Hutchins
Update: 10 June 2007
Books
Machine translation: past, present, future. (Ellis Horwood Series in Computers and their Applications.)
(edited) Early years in
machine translation: memoirs and biographies of pioneers.
General histories
Machine translation: a concise history. To be
published in Computer aided translation:
Theory and practice, ed. Chan Sin Wai.
Machine translation: history of research and use.
In: Encyclopedia of Languages and Linguistics. 2nd edition, edited by
Keith Brown (
Machine translation over fifty years. Histoire, Epistémologie, Langage. Vol. 23 (1), 2001: Le traitement automatique des langues [ed. Jacqueline Léon],
7-31. [PDF, 160KB]
Reflections on the history and present
state of machine translation. In: MT
Machine translation: a brief history.
In: Concise history of the language sciences: from the Sumerians to the cognitivists. Ed. E.F.K.Koerner
and R.E.Asher (Pergamon,
1995), pp.431-445. [PDF, 186KB]
Machine translation: history and general principles.
In: The encyclopedia of languages and linguistics. Editor-in-chief: R.E.Asher.
Special aspects
Has machine translation improved? some
historical comparisons MT
An expanded version [PDF, 288KB] illustrates further
aspects, and a database gives
longer examples of MT texts from the past, with comparative output from some
current systems.
The origins of the translator’s
workstation. Machine
Translation 13(4), 1998, 287-307 [printed December 1999] [PDF, 170KB]
Reflections on the history and present
state of machine translation. In: MT
Linguistic
models in machine translation. UEA Papers in
Linguistics 9, January 1979, pp.29-52. [PDF, 197KB]
Special periods
1980s
and 1990s
Research methods and system designs in machine
translation: a ten-year review, 1984-1994. In: Machine Translation: Ten
Years On, 12-14 November 1994. Organised by
Twenty years of Translating and the Computer. Translating
and the Computer 20: proceedings of the Twentieth International Conference on
Translating and the Computer, 12-13 November, 1998,
Recent developments in machine translation: a review
of the last five years. In: New directions in machine translation:
conference proceedings,
Out of the shadows: a retrospect of
machine translation in the eighties. Paper
presented at Computer & Translation ‘89,
Recent developments in machine translation: a review
of the last five years. In: New directions in machine translation:
conference proceedings,
to 1979
Machine translation and machine-aided translation. Journal of Documentation
34(2), June 1978, 119-159 (Progress in Documentation). [Reprinted
in: Translation: literary, linguistic, and philosophical perspectives.
Edited by William Frawley.
(Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1984); pp. 93-149] [PDF, 378KB]
The evolution of machine translation
systems. In: Practical experience of
machine translation: Proceedings of a conference,
ALPAC: the (in)famous report.
MT News International 14, June 1996, 9-12. Repr. (with minor revisions) in: Nirenburg,
S., Somers, H. and Wilks, Y. (eds.)
The first public demonstration of machine translation:
the Georgetown-IBM system, 7th January 1954. [Not published. Written
November 2005] A much expanded version [PDF, 1773KB] of the
AMTA-2004 paper; and including contemporary photographs. Appendices give the
original sentences in Cyrillic, transliterated and translated; the dictionary
entries; and a list of contemporary reports. Also available are copies of some reports.
The Georgetown-IBM experiment demonstrated in January 1954.
Machine translation: from real users to research: 6th conference of the
Association for Machine Translation in the Americas, AMTA 2004, Washington, DC,
USA, September 28 - October 2, 2004. Proceedings, ed. Robert E.Frederking and Kathryn B.Taylor
(
Looking back to 1952: the first MT
conference. In TMI-97: proceedings of
the 7th International Conference on Theoretical and Methodological Issues in
Machine Translation, July 23-25, 1997, St.John's
College, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA. [
First steps in mechanical translation. In: MT
From first conception to first demonstration: the nascent
years of machine translation, 1947-1954. A chronology. Machine Translation 12 (3), 1997: 195-252. [PDF,
326KB] The
original publication is available at www.springerlink.com. Also a corrected
version, with minor additions (2005) [PDF, 328KB]
Historical personages
Bar-Hillel, Yehoshua. Encyclopedia of Linguistics, ed. Philipp Strasny (
Yehoshua Bar-Hillel: a
philosopher’s contribution to machine translation. In: Hutchins, W.John (ed.) Early years in machine translation
(
Gilbert W. King and the USAF Translator. In: Hutchins, W.John (ed.) Early
years in machine translation (
Warren Weaver and the launching of MT: brief
biographical note. In: Hutchins, W.John (ed.) Early
years in machine translation (
(with Evgeny Lovtskii) Petr Petrovich
Troyanskii (1894-1950): a forgotten pioneer of
mechanical translation. Machine Translation 15 (3), 2000,
187-221. [PDF, 279KB]
Two precursors of machine translation: Artsrouni
and Trojanskij. International Journal of
Translation 16(1) Jan-June 2004, 11-31. [PDF, 289KB]
Other (shorter) articles
History of MT in a nutshell. A two-page sketch, from the
beginnings to the present. [Written 2000-2001, revised November 2005]
Machine translation: general overview. In: Mitkov, Ruslan (ed.) The
Milestones no.6: Bar-Hillel and the nonfeasibility
of FAHQT. International Journal of Language and Documentation no.1
(September 1999), 20-21
[PDF, 105KB]
Warren Weaver memorandum: 50th anniversary of machine
translation. MT News International issue 22 (vol.8 no.1),
July 1999, p.5-6, 15 [PDF, 102KB]
Milestones in machine translation.
No. 5: The IBM-Georgetown demonstration, January 1954.
Language Today no.16 (January 1999), 19-20. [PDF, 106KB]
Milestones in machine translation.
Part 4: The first machine translation conference, June 1952. Language Today no.13 (October 1998), 12-13. [PDF, 96KB]
Milestones in machine translation.
Part 3: Bar-Hillel’s survey, 1951 Language Today no.8 (May 1998),
p.22-23 [PDF,
91KB]
Milestones in machine translation.
Part 2: Weaver’s 1949 memorandum. Language Today, no.6 (March 1998),
p.22-23 [PDF,
107KB]
Milestones in machine translation.
Part 1: How it all began in 1947 and 1948. Language Today, no.3
(December 1997), p.22-23 [PDF, 84KB]
Fifty years of the computer and translation. MT
News International 16 (February 1997), 14-15. Repr. in:
Machine Translation Review, no.6 (October 1997), p.22-24. [PDF, 95KB] On Weaver’s memorandum.
“The whiskey was invisible”, or persistent myths of MT.
MT News International 11 (June 1995), 17-18. [PDF, 92KB]
The Georgetown-IBM demonstration, 7th
January 1954. MT News International
8 (May 1994), 15-18. [PDF, 103KB]
The first MT patents. MT News International 5 (May 1993), 14-15. [PDF,
113KB] On Artsrouni and Troyanskii.
The first MT conference, 1952. MT News International 2 (May 1992), 11-12. [PDF, 96KB]
Powerpoint presentations
Outline of the evolution of machine translation. Presentation on panel held at Aslib “Translating and the Computer 30”, 27 November 2008.
Milestones in the history of machine translation. Presentation at the conference “Current
issues in theoretical and applied linguistics”, 11 December 2007,
Unpublished articles
Machine translation: half a century of research and use.
Paper prepared for UNED summer school, Avila 2003. [Unpublished.]
[PDF, 201KB]
The historical development of machine
translation. Submission
for Ph.D. by Publication, at