Russian Dialects and Language Translation Software
When you will be translating Russian, it is important to remember that there
are different Russian dialects in existence. Learning more about dialects
can be important when working with language translation and language translation
software.
Russian is spoken by nearly 285 million people worldwide. Most Russian speakers
are located primarily in Eastern Europe and Asia, with a large percentage
of them living in the areas which used to be part of the U.S.S.R. prior to
the year 1991.
Pronunciation and usage of the spoken Russian language varies from one area
to another; however, the differences are not so great as to make the language
unintelligible to speakers from different regions.
What is a dialect?
A dialect means that speech of the same language can vary a bit from one
location to another. The dialect generally applies to the vocabulary, grammar,
and pronunciation characteristics of a specific geographic location or social
class.
English Dialects / American English Compared to UK English
To better understand dialects, let’s take a quick look at English.
There are many different English dialects, but if you know English then you
can understand all of them. For example, in England you could pick up a British
newspaper and easily read it. However, you would find that some words have
different meanings in the UK than here in the US. For example, you might
read the sentence “I am going to the market to buy some tinned tuna.” Here
in the US you would more likely say “I am going to the market to buy
some canned tuna.” While the British use the word “tinned” and
in the US we use the word “canned” you are still able to get
the idea of what they are writing about.
Systran’s software has the built-in ability to translate using the
British English or American English dialects.
Russian Dialects:
The Russian language is currently undergoing some transformations, much
more so than many other major languages of the world. The build-up of the
Soviet Empire made Russian a very standard language in the early 20th century
in much of Eastern Europe. Since this time, Russian speakers have all learned
the most common literary Russian language.
However, with the fall of the Soviet Empire in 1991, many countries are
working to exert their independence through their modifications of the Russian
language and development of their own local dialects and languages. This
is contrary to what is happening with other primary languages of the world.
What is Localization?
Localization refers to when you modify a translation to account for a certain
dialect and culture of an area.
Systran’s Translation Software uses the International Russian
Dialect
Systran’s translation software uses the standard International Russian
Dialect for its translations. You can very easily customize the Russian translation
to another dialect by training the software to recognize different words
for another dialect. You do this through the use of custom dictionaries,
building translation memory, and more.
Overall the differences between the Russian dialects found in Eastern Europe
and Asia with regard to pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar are relatively
minor. Because the differences are minor, if you translate with the software
a person who speaks the Russian language can understand the resulting translation.
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