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25th translation contest: "Alien first impressions" » English to Hungarian

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Source text in English

Imagine dining in a European capital where you do not know the local language. The waiter speaks little English, but by hook or by crook you manage to order something on the menu that you recognise, eat and pay for. Now picture instead that, after a hike goes wrong, you emerge, starving, in an Amazonian village. The people there have no idea what to make of you. You mime chewing sounds, which they mistake for your primitive tongue. When you raise your hands to signify surrender, they think you are launching an attack.

Communicating without a shared context is hard. For example, radioactive sites must be left undisturbed for tens of thousands of years; yet, given that the English of just 1,000 years ago is now unintelligible to most of its modern speakers, agencies have struggled to create warnings to accompany nuclear waste. Committees responsible for doing so have come up with everything from towering concrete spikes, to Edvard Munch’s “The Scream”, to plants genetically modified to turn an alarming blue. None is guaranteed to be future-proof.

Some of the same people who worked on these waste-site messages have also been part of an even bigger challenge: communicating with extraterrestrial life. This is the subject of “Extraterrestrial Languages”, a new book by Daniel Oberhaus, a journalist at Wired.

Nothing is known about how extraterrestrials might take in information. A pair of plaques sent in the early 1970s with Pioneer 10 and 11, two spacecraft, show nude human beings and a rough map to find Earth—rudimentary stuff, but even that assumes aliens can see. Since such craft have no more than an infinitesimal chance of being found, radio broadcasts from Earth, travelling at the speed of light, are more likely to make contact. But just as a terrestrial radio must be tuned to the right frequency, so must the interstellar kind. How would aliens happen upon the correct one? The Pioneer plaque gives a hint in the form of a basic diagram of a hydrogen atom, the magnetic polarity of which flips at regular intervals, with a frequency of 1,420MHz. Since hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, the hope is that this sketch might act as a sort of telephone number.

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Entries (5 total) Expand all entries

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Entry #31367 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Hungary
Voting points1st2nd3rd
164 x400
Entry tagging:
  • 2 users entered 6 "like" tags
étlen-szomjan
Good term selection
Katalin Jaksa
képtelenek zöldágra vergődni veled
Flows well
Katalin Jaksa
nehéz ügy
Flows well
Katalin Jaksa
Az illetékes bizottságok előálltak mindenféle ötlettel
Flows well
Peter Szekretar
bekékülő
Good term selection
Katalin Jaksa
a Földről sugárzott, fénysebességgel haladó rádiójelek
Flows well
Peter Szekretar
Entry #31591 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Hungary
Voting points1st2nd3rd
112 x41 x21 x1
Entry tagging:
  • 3 users entered 5 "like" tags
mindent bevet a cél érdekében
Flows well
Peter Szekretar
a modern beszélők többsége számára már az 1000 évvel ezelőtti angol nyelv is érthetetlen
Flows well
Endre Both
komoly fejtörést okoz
Flows well
Endre Both
nagyobb az esély a kapcsolatteremtésre
Flows well
liford
Ahogyan azonban a földi rádiót is be kell állítani a megfelelő frekvenciára
Flows well
liford
Entry #31657 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Hungary
Voting points1st2nd3rd
301 x21 x1
Entry tagging:
  • 4 users entered 8 "like" tags
  • 1 user disagreed with "likes" (1 total disagree)
az étlapon felismerünk, aztán megesszük, kifizetjük
Flows well
Peter Szekretar
a nukleáris hulladékot megfelelő figyelmeztetésekkel lássák el
Flows well
Peter Szekretar
jövőálló
Good term selection
Júlia Babos
részt vettek egy még nagyobb kihívást jelentő feladatban
Flows well
Peter Szekretar
elnagyolt térképet,
Flows well
liford
-1
1
legelemibb
Good term selection
Endre Both
Mivel az ilyen tárgyaknak csak végtelenül kis esélye van arra, hogy rájuk találjanak
Flows well
Peter Szekretar
Mivel a hidrogén a leggyakoribb elem az univerzumban, megvan a remény arra, hogy ez a rajz egyfajta telefonszámként szolgálhat.
Flows well
liford
Entry #30701 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Hungary
Voting points1st2nd3rd
201 x20
Entry tagging:
  • No "like" tags
Entry #30662 — Discuss 0 — Variant: Not specified
Voting points1st2nd3rd
1001 x1
Entry tagging:
  • 2 users entered 4 "like" tags
időtálló volta ezek egyikének sem szavatolt
Flows well
Endre Both
ez is arra alapoz, hogy az idegenek egyáltalán látnak
Flows well
jól kiemel​i a lényeg​et
liford
Ám
Good term selection
Örülök, ho​gy nem "de​"
liford
Hogy fognak az idegenek pont erre a frekvenciára rátalálni?
Flows well
liford