WALES: Land Of My (Robot) Fathers
I’ve had an idea and right here seems to be a good place to float it down the river and see what happens.
Sometime in the next month or so, I have a new short story collection coming out called The Man Who Lived Again. The stories clock in at around 10,000 words each and there are five of them, so it’s a decent amount of work. They’re stories about men who should have stopped but couldn't, wouldn't or didn’t know how. In no particular order, those stories are: The Badger, The Man Who Lived Again, Annie Five, The Tuba Farm and Just Like Living In Paradise. I’m flexing my wings in this bunch - different styles according to my mood swings.
I have some further edits to make and a cover to design but that’s not why we’re here. We are here to look at an idea, and that idea is that I’d also like to release it in Welsh.
There’s a few ways I could do this - and let’s never forget it’s only an idea - and one of them would be to use AI to translate it for me. There’s an awful lot of pushback in the world against using AI to write with and that’s as it should be, it’s not a road I’d go down. I actually like writing once I get into the groove and am not desperate enough to hand my ideas over to the ‘bots to get work finished in the next ten minutes. However, AI isn’t without its positives at all - it can be a great tool - but is it actually good enough to translate work into what is (let’s face it) not a major language in the world for it to have been trained on?
The first option should be to pay somebody to do it properly for me but I don’t have that kind of money and I’m also curious as to how it might turn out. Thus, the experiment will go ahead with full transparency… because we need to see what happens. Is it putting a translator out of a job? It would if I was going to pay them and changed my mind, but like I said, penniless ain’t gonna help no translator pay their rent.
I’ll take one of the stories and publish it here in English - I’ll also publish the results of the ‘Welsh language’ version - and then I’m going to invite some beta testing dual language readers to comment on the accuracy of it, because if we don’t do it, we’ll never know. There are many holes in the road of such an experiment but I also think that if it works, it’s more valauble to have new work available in Welsh than it is to not have it.
I can see a point at which I might press the kill switch on the experiment but it’s intriguing don’t you think? I’m sure I could do French or Spanish translations using Google Translate (which nobody thinks of as AI but trust me, it is) and come up with a decent piece of work but that means nothing to me. Welsh though? Catering to my roots? I think that has value.
I have my reservations that it will work out well but there’s no point in saying “don’t put your hand in the fire” if nobody has ever put their hand in the flames before to tell you it’s hot.
To kick start the conversation, here’s the first paragraph of The Tuba Farm, closely followed by a translation from Chat GPT:
The four boys hid as best they could behind the narrow trees in the wood. This was going to be the best fun any of them had ever had. Each had stolen away from their beds on this cold winter night to see if what the villagers said about the farmer was really true. They shivered as they stood in the growing darkness, each trying his best to not look as though they were shivering lest one of the others think they were not up to the adventure. Although the trees were thin, they were dense enough to afford more cover than four boys could ever need. Despite the winter, these evergreens were in the prime of their existence. Above them, snow hung on weary branches, threatening to give at any moment to the gravity that weighed so heavily on them.
•••
Roedd y pedwar bachgen yn cuddio cystal ag y gallent y tu ôl i’r coed cul yn y goedwig. Roedd hyn am fod y mwyaf o hwyl a gawsai unrhyw un ohonynt erioed. Roedd pob un wedi llithro allan o’i wely ar y noson aeafol oer hon i weld a oedd yr hyn a ddywedai’r pentrefwyr am y ffermwr yn wir mewn gwirionedd. Roeddent yn crynu wrth sefyll yn y tywyllwch cynyddol, pob un yn gwneud ei orau i beidio ag edrych fel pe bai’n crynu rhag i’r lleill feddwl nad oedd yn ddigon dewr ar gyfer yr antur. Er bod y coed yn denau, roeddent yn ddigon trwchus i roi mwy o orchudd nag y byddai pedwar bachgen byth ei angen. Er gwaethaf y gaeaf, roedd y coed bytholwyrdd hyn ar eu hanterth. Uwch eu pennau, roedd eira’n hongian ar ganghennau blinedig, yn bygwth ildio ar unrhyw eiliad i’r disgyrchiant a oedd yn pwyso mor drwm arnynt.
For comparison, here’s a translation of the very same using Google Translate:
Cuddiodd y pedwar bachgen cyn gynted ag y gallent y tu ôl i'r coed cul yn y goedwig. Dyma fyddai'r hwyl orau i unrhyw un ohonynt erioed ei gael. Roedd pob un wedi llithro i ffwrdd o'u gwelyau ar y noson oer aeafol hon i weld a oedd yr hyn a ddywedodd y pentrefwyr am y ffermwr yn wir mewn gwirionedd. Crynasant wrth iddynt sefyll yn y tywyllwch cynyddol, pob un yn gwneud ei orau i beidio ag edrych fel pe baent yn crynu rhag ofn i un o'r lleill feddwl nad oeddent yn barod am yr antur. Er bod y coed yn denau, roeddent yn ddigon trwchus i gynnig mwy o orchudd nag y gallai pedwar bachgen byth ei angen. Er gwaethaf y gaeaf, roedd y coed bytholwyrdd hyn yng nghanol eu bodolaeth. Uwchben nhw, roedd eira'n hongian ar ganghennau blinedig, gan fygwth ildio ar unrhyw adeg i'r disgyrchiant a oedd mor drwm arnynt.
•••
The translations are very similar and that’s probably a good sign, but I need to dig deep and find out whether, if I were to give the same work to two different human translators, would we come up with two different results then as well? The Welsh of North Wales is also slightly different from the Welsh of the South - certain words differ, such as llaeth (South) vs. llefrith (North) for milk, and nain/taid (North) vs. mamgu/tadcu(South) for grandparents. These are also interchangable depending on where your family tree came from and ended up.
Language is a tricky thing at the best of times and translating books is littered with more potholes than you could ever imagine - I’m sure there are dozens of articles about it online. Here’s a good one if you want to get a flavour for the task.
So begins the experiment. I have no idea how accurate anything is really. My Welsh language skills allow me to vaguely follow a TV show (I made it through the first episode of Hinterland without subtitles before I got frustrated), ask if you want a cup of coffee or if you’d like to buy a raffle ticket.
Now… let me find some Welsh speakers whilst the project is relatively small and I’ll update you in future posts. If you happen to be passing by and can read it, I’d love it if you could leave a comment.
