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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. 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 .
Though seemingly out of nowhere, Babel Fish actually has a long history. Though the online service launched in 1997, it has its roots in SYSTRAN, a machine translation company founded in California in 1968 to help the U.S. government translate Russian texts to English.
Apr 3, 2021 · Less than two decades later, AltaVista launched an online translation tool called babelfish, which was eventually purchased by Yahoo. It stuck around until 2012 when it was replaced by Microsoft Bing’s translation service, but the Babel fish has lingered firmly in popular culture as shorthand for ‘the ultimate translation solution’.
May 3, 2006 · Researchers at what used to be known as Digital Equipment Corp. put Babel Fish up on what was once the Internet's smartest search engine, AltaVista, all the way back in 1997.
Feb 12, 1998 · A speedy, on-line translation service now exists online, provided by the AltaVista Internet search service. It is called "Babelfish," and provides — free of charge — a site for users to ...
Nov 2, 2023 · AltaVista also launched Babel Fish, an early, free language service that worked pretty well. New competition and acquisitions. AltaVista used relevance and keywords to rank its search results. But Google was working on a system called PageRank that weighed results based on authority.
AltaVista provided Babel Fish, a Web-based machine translation application that translated text or webpages from one of several languages into another. [25] It was later superseded by Yahoo! Babel Fish in May 2008 and now redirects to Bing 's translation service.
