This page looks at translation issues by way of a somewhat silly self-referential sentence. But the issues identified happen in real translations and show the difficulty of creating accurate language translations (in the presence of errors or ambiguities).
Here is a self-referential sentence.
This is a sentence.
No problem here.
How about the following self-referential sentence?
You are reading this sentence.
How might this be "
true" or "
false"?
Here is the puzzle in text form.
Version #
1:
There is three errers in this sentence.
First them. Then ask yourself the following question. How easy is it to fix them?
The following is a sequence of changes to fix identified errors. There are many possible sequences. One is chosen here. The underlined parts are the parts that have been changed from the previous sentence.
First, let us change "
errers" to "
errors".
Version #
2:
There is three errors in this sentence.
There are now only two errors in the sentence.
Next, let us change "
is" to "
are".
Version #
3:
There are three errors in this sentence.
There is now only one error in the sentence.
Next, let us change "
three" to "
one".
Version #
4:
There are one errors in this sentence.
We have fixed that error, but introduced two more errors in the sentence.
Let us change "
are" to "
is". Note that this was in the original sentence.
Version #
5:
There is one errors in this sentence.
There are now only one error in the sentence.
Let us change "
errors" to "
error".
Version #
6:
There is one error in this sentence.
Notice that there are no errors in the sentence.
Let us change "
one" to "
zero".
Version #
7:
There is zero error in this sentence.
There are now two errors in the sentence.
Let us change "
error" to "
errors".
Version #
8:
There is zero errors in this sentence.
There is now one error in the sentence.
Let us change "
is" to "
are", a change previously made and undone.
Version #
9:
There are zero errors in this sentence.
The sentence is now correct. But what have we changed in the meaning and sentence itself?
The preceding sequence may seem like a silly little example, but it exemplifies the issues of translating one text into another text and trying to address apparent mistakes in the original text. Let us look at a summary of the progression.
#1: There is three errers in this sentence.
#2: There is three errors in this sentence.
#3: There are three errors in this sentence.
#4: There are one errors in this sentence.
#5: There is one errors in this sentence.
#6: There is one error in this sentence.
#7: There is zero error in this sentence.
#8: There is zero errors in this sentence.
#9: There are zero errors in this sentence.
Have we lost anything in trying to "
fix" the errors?
Translation can be very non-obvious and difficult if not impossible (to retain the original meaning). Consider the following word puzzle.
There is three errers in this sentence.
In translation, rather than trying to find and fix the errors, a better way might be to let the original sentence as it is and add another sentence (as a gloss, etc.) that refers to the erroneous sentence, something like the following.
The previous sentence contains three errors.
In graduate school, for a Ph.D. in computer science, we needed to pass a scientific language such as German. But one could not just take the test. Since computer science had funds, some of those funds were used to support language graduate students. After a few lessons, the teacher said I could come when I wanted to and take the test at the end, since I had an advanced knowledge of German.
Near the start, I did ask her the following. If I could produce a English sentence that she could not translate into German, then I would get an A and pass the course. She did not accept but wanted to know the sentence. The sentence was, "This sentence is in English". If you translate it into "Dieses Satz ist auf Englisch", then the sentence is now false since it is no longer in English. But if you translate it into "Dieses Satz ist auf Deutsch" then the sentence is true but is not an accurate translation of the original sentence. This concept is related to many logical paradoxes involving self-reference.
