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Babel Fish (website)

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Yahoo! Babel Fish
Type of site
Translation service
OwnerYahoo!
URLbabelfish.yahoo.com
CommercialNo
LaunchedDecember 9, 1997; 27 years ago (1997-12-09)
Current statusDefunct

Yahoo! Babel Fish was a free Web-based machine translation service by Yahoo!. In May 2012 it was replaced by Bing Translator (now Microsoft Translator), to which queries were redirected.[1] Although Yahoo! has transitioned its Babel Fish translation services to Bing Translator, it did not sell its translation application to Microsoft outright.[2][3] As the oldest free online language translator,[4] the service translated text or Web pages in 36 pairs between 13 languages,[4] including English, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.

The internet service derived its name from the Babel fish, a fictional species in Douglas Adams's book and radio series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that could instantly translate languages.[5] In turn, the name of the fictional creature refers to the biblical account of the confusion of languages that arose in the city of Babel.

History

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On December 9, 1997, Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) and SYSTRAN S.A. launched AltaVista Translation Service at babelfish.altavista.com,[6] which was developed by a team of researchers at DEC.[4][7] In February 2003, AltaVista was bought by Overture Services, Inc.[8] In July 2003, Overture, in turn, was taken over by Yahoo!.[9]

The web address for Babel Fish remained at babelfish.altavista.com until May 9, 2008, when the address changed to babelfish.yahoo.com.[10]

In 2012, the Web address changed again, this time redirecting babelfish.yahoo.com to www.microsofttranslator.com when Microsoft's Bing Translator replaced Yahoo Babel Fish.[11]

As of June 2013, babelfish.yahoo.com no longer redirects to the Microsoft Bing Translator. Instead, it refers directly back to the main Yahoo.com page.[12]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Welcome Yahoo! Babel Fish users!". Bing Translator blog. 2012-05-31. Retrieved 2012-05-31.
  2. ^ "Welcoming Yahoo! Babel Fish users!". Bing Translator blog. 2012-05-30. Retrieved 2012-05-31.
  3. ^ "Yahoo's Babel Fish replaced with Bing Translator". Neowin.net, June 3, 2012, Jon Callaham.
  4. ^ a b c "Yahoo Launches Babel Fish". Techshout.com, April 2006. 28 April 2006.
  5. ^ Switzer, Kyle (October 21, 2024). "The Rise and Fall of Babel Fish: What Happened to the Revolutionary Translation Tool?". AudioChamps. Retrieved 26 October 2024.
  6. ^ "Babelfish: English". 1999-04-27. Archived from the original on 1999-04-27. Retrieved 2018-07-22.
  7. ^ "BabelFish on the move - Business Edge News Magazine Archives". Businessedge.ca. 2003-05-15. Archived from the original on 2011-09-29. Retrieved 2012-09-20.
  8. ^ Hansell, Saul (February 19, 2003), "Overture Services to Buy AltaVista for $140 Million", The New York Times
  9. ^ "Yahoo to acquire Overture". July 13, 2003. Archived from the original on July 8, 2007.
  10. ^ "AltaVista history". Websearchworkshop.co.uk. 1995-12-15. Retrieved 2012-09-20.
  11. ^ "Welcoming Yahoo! Babel Fish users!". Microsoft Translator (and Bing Translator) Official Team Blog. Retrieved 2012-06-22.
  12. ^ "Yahoo! Babelfish - redirects to Yahoo!". babelfish.yahoo.com. Archived from the original on 2006-05-04. Retrieved 2023-12-02.
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