[lg policy] Google Translate Makes Russia 'Mordor, ' Lavrov 'Sad Little Horse'

[Fierman, William]

Google Translate Makes Russia 'Mordor,' Lavrov 'Sad Little Horse'


The surname of Sergei Lavrov, the long-serving Russian foreign minister who has been a prominent and outspoken figure since the crisis erupted between Ukraine and Russia nearly two years ago, was translated as "sad little horse."
The surname of Sergei Lavrov, the long-serving Russian foreign minister who has been a prominent and outspoken figure since the crisis erupted between Ukraine and Russia nearly two years ago, was translated as "sad little horse."

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By Tom Balmforth

January 05, 2016

MOSCOW -- Google's hugely popular translation tool has taken to rendering certain Ukrainian words into Russian with a pronounced pro-Kyiv political spin.

On January 5, for instance, "Russian Federation" in Ukrainian (Російська Федерація) was being translated as "Mordor," the fictional realm occupied and controlled by evil necromancer Sauron in J.R.R. Tolkien's epic, The Lord Of The Rings.

It was unclear if the mistranslations were the result of a hack, or whether they were due to a malfunction in the algorithms used by Google to power its translation tool.

Meanwhile, the surname of Sergei Lavrov, the long-serving Russian foreign minister who has been a prominent and outspoken figure since the crisis erupted between Ukraine and Russia nearly two years ago, was translated as "sad little horse."
Google Translate Ukraine-to-Russian translation of Lavrov as "sad little horse"
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