Real-time Google Translate for Twitter

Following on from my previous post about how to use a Greasemonkey script in Firefox to auto-translate Persian tweets in Twitter here's another way to get Persian tweets into English. The Google System blog has a good overview of how to do this but you're here, and this can be a little clearer.

Go to Google Translate and copy the following string of text http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23iranelection&lang=fa (it's searching for tweets with #iranelection in Persian) into the search box...

Twitter's front-end interface doesn't give you the option of searching only Persian/Farsi tweets, but the search does seem to support it by adding lang=fa to the query string.

Sadly the AJAX updater won't tell you if new tweets have come in since you've been looking at the page, but you can just refresh your browser and it should pull out any new ones.

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And you can get a Google Translate button for your web browser here. Once you've got the button, just click it whenever you have Persian text on a page and it'll translate it for you.

Google Translate, Facebook and iPhone now support Persian/Farsi

Google Translate adds Persian

I started writing a blog post just before voting began in the Iranian presidential election about the lack of a Persian option in Google Translate. With so much content on the web in Persian, it would have been great to be able to do a quick and rough machine translation into English.

Searching Google brought up no news about any new languages coming up in Google Translate. There are questions on mailing lists asking if it was going to happen, but those asking were always redirected to this FAQ saying large volumes of bi-lingual texts were needed.

But now Google Translate supports Persian (even though it's a very rough alpha version):

We feel that launching Persian is particularly important now, given ongoing events in Iran. Like YouTube and other services, Google Translate is one more tool that Persian speakers can use to communicate directly to the world, and vice versa — increasing everyone's access to information.

Being a machine translation, it's not perfect. It will certainly lose some of the flavour of Persian, the flourishes and idioms (which always lose something in translation), but it's a start. Cyrus Farivar has more on the accuracy, but seems glad it's finally here (as am I!). You can use Google Translate to translate BBC Persian into English, translate Persian tweets into English and now, the entire Persian blogosphere!

YouTube relaxes rules to help Iranians

Google also relaxed its rules on classifying videos on YouTube after graphic videos of violent attacks by Basij members on demonstrators were removed. Google lived up to its "don't be evil" motto (especially after the hurdles Iranians had to clear in order to upload their videos in the first place).

Facebook launches a Persian interface

hanks to the work of 400 Persian-speaking volunteers Facebook now has a Persian interface that automatically detect browser language and displays accordingly. The company says...

Since the Iranian election last week, people around the world have increasingly been sharing news and information on Facebook about the results and its aftermath. Much of the content created and shared has been in Persian—the native language of Iran — but people have had to navigate the site in English or other languages.

Great news and a triumph of collaborative working from those involved.

iPhone 3.0 supports Persian

People in Iran were some of the first to get jailbroken iPhones. With the highly anticipated version 3.0 of the iPhone OS, they've now got a legit Persian interface!

Pic taken from Cyrus Farivar's blog

Twitter switches to HTTPS for added security

Twitter switched over to HTTPS to ensure extra security for its web-based users. It could just be a coincidence, but I suspect its also a response to the popularity of the #iranelection hashtag and coverage the service has been getting. I'll be uploading a user guide to getting Google Translate and Twitter to work together.

Seven Valleys of Love, new Iranian poetry anthology

A new book of poetry called Seven Valleys of Love by Sheema Kalbasi looking at the works of Iranian female poets from Middle Ages Persia to contemporary Iran. (Hat tip to Kamangir)

Those Days

Those days

Poetry

Was my room

And wherever I felt unsafe

I gravitated into its eternal sanctuary.

These days

There aren’t any rooms

That can harbor me against the crowd

and behind every window

inside and outside every room

a two-faced clown sneers.

Fereshteh Sari (more samples from the book )

The book can be purchased online on Amazon. Some donations will proceed to a breast cancer research center in Connecticut.

It may not seem as though there have been many Iranian female poets or writers published, but there are certainly more than any other country (bar Israel) in the Middle East. There are several good anthologies of Iranian womens' fiction out there too. I think Palestine, Iran and maybe Lebanon stand out as being the countries in the region with the most thriving literary cultures.

Bathing by Forough Farrokhzad (فروغ فرخزاد) / Persian poetry

I shed my clothes in the lush air
to bathe naked in the spring water,
but the quiet night seduced me
into telling it my gloomy story.

The water's cool shimmering waves
moaned and lustily surrounded me,
urged with soft crystal hands
my body and spirit into themselves.

A far breeze hurried in,
poured a lapful of flowers in my hair,
breathed into my mouth Eurasian mint's
pungent, heart-clinging scent.

Silent and soaring, I closed my eyes,
pressed my body against the soft young rushes,
and like a woman folded into her lover's arms
gave myself to the flowing waters.

Aroused, parched, and fevered, the water's lips
rippled trembling kisses on my thighs,
and we suddenly collapsed, intoxicated, gratified,
both sinners, my body and the spring's soul.

Original published in Deevar (The Wall). This translation comes from Sholeh Wolpé's Sin. Amazon has a whole bunch of Forough Farrokhzad poetry collections in translation.

Persian poetry in English / Forough Farrokhzad

"Why are you wasting your time on that whore?" is the question poet and translator Sholeh Wolpé kept being asked when talking about her book of Forough Farrokhzad poems. And it's 40 years since Forough died, so that's a powerful legacy.

Forough Farrokhzad (Persian: فروغ فرخزاد) wrote provocative poetry, full of challenge, defiance, taboo-breaking and lived her life in the same way. Her short life was a whirlwind of scandal (sometimes self-created, sometimes not), rejection by the male-dominated publishing and poetry/arts establishment, but also devotion from Iranians. Always an outsider and, given Iran's reactionary turn since the ousting of the Shah, guaranteed to stay that way. But that doesn't mean that Iranian's don't read her poetry or take it into their hearts.

A selected works in English and in Persian is available online. I'm going to post up several of her poems. YouTube has some videos about her and of people reading her poems (and more and more).

Problems translating poetry

In the preface to Modern Poetry in Translation No. 19: Iraqi Poetry Today Saadi Simawe argues that:

"translating poetry requires not only familiarity with the two languages, but also knowledge of the poetic sensibilities of the peoples and literary traditions of those languages... Since absolute translation is a myth, and since the literal translation is spiritless if not meaningless in most cases, collaboration [between native speakers] is essential in establishing a linguistic and cultural conduit between the two languages."

This applies not only to poetry, but to all writing. Subtle ironies, metaphors, historical allusions, cultural context are lost in translation. The words, rhythm, flow and meaning are all gutted by poor attempts at absolute translation. That doesn't mean that you can't enjoy it, but it does mean that you won't learn anything from it.

Omar Pound, with a mastery of Persian, Arabic and English poetry elegantly and sympathetically translated 40 classic Persian and Arabic poems for a 1970 volume Arabic & Persian Poems. He addressed the problem of an absolute translation and in some of the poems he updated the allusions and references to more contemporary characters and events (although almost 40 years later they are now out of date). Here are some of the best ones:

The earth outside
spun within
when they told me
she had married him

Now I know it's over
but Allah,
     Why did you let her go?
To pity what is left of me
and emphasise you still control?

Be merciful to her
     through him

He must have been poor indeed
to need her more than I.

Muzahim al-Uqaili (reminiscent of Rupert Brooke). There is a 1920 collection of his poems The poetical remains of Muzahim al-Uqaili edited and translated by F. Krenkow.

White hairs
are the voice
of the wind of death
and with them comes
     despair

they shudder the willow
of my heart—and moan:

What! Still asleep!
You're no longer needed here,
it is time to leave for home.

Jama Isfahani (died 1192).