Babel Fish (website)

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Yahoo! Babel Fish
Type of site
Translation service
OwnerYahoo!
URLbabelfish.yahoo.com
CommercialNo
LaunchedDecember 9, 1997; 26 years ago (1997-12-09)
Current statusDefunct

Yahoo! Babel Fish was a free

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

confusion of languages that arose in the city of Babel
.

History

On December 9, 1997,

Overture Services, Inc.[7]
In July 2003, Overture, in turn, was taken over by Yahoo!.[8]

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

As of May 30, 2012, the Web address changed yet again, this time redirecting babelfish.yahoo.com to www.microsofttranslator.com when Microsoft's Bing Translator replaced Yahoo Babel Fish.[10]

Yahoo! Babel Fish should not be confused with The BabelFish Corporation founded by Oscar Jofre,[11] which was operated at the URL www.babelfish.com (created in 1995).[12]

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.[13]

Supported languages

  • Chinese (Simplified) to English
  • Chinese (Traditional) to English
  • Dutch to English
  • Dutch to French
  • English to Chinese (Simplified)
  • English to Chinese (Traditional)
  • English to Dutch
  • English to French
  • English to German
  • English to Greek
  • English to Italian
  • English to Japanese
  • English to Korean
  • English to Portuguese
  • English to Russian
  • English to Spanish
  • French to Dutch
  • French to English
  • French to German
  • French to Greek
  • French to Italian
  • French to Portuguese
  • French to Spanish
  • German to English
  • German to French
  • Greek to English
  • Greek to French
  • Italian to English
  • Italian to French
  • Japanese to English
  • Korean to English
  • Portuguese to English
  • Portuguese to French
  • Russian to English
  • Spanish to English
  • Spanish to French

See also

References

  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. ^ "Babelfish: English". 1999-04-27. Archived from the original on 1999-04-27. Retrieved 2018-07-22.
  6. ^ "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.
  7. ^ Hansell, Saul (February 19, 2003), "Overture Services to Buy AltaVista for $140 Million", The New York Times
  8. ^ "Yahoo to acquire Overture". July 13, 2003. Archived from the original on July 8, 2007.
  9. ^ "AltaVista history". Websearchworkshop.co.uk. 1995-12-15. Retrieved 2012-09-20.
  10. ^ "Welcoming Yahoo! Babel Fish users!". Microsoft Translator (and Bing Translator) Official Team Blog. Retrieved 2012-06-22.
  11. ^ "BabelFish continues to grow international presence". March 7, 2003. Archived from the original on 2016-02-08. Retrieved 2012-07-18.
  12. ^ "Public Whois of BabelFish". Verisign Registry. Archived from the original on 2015-10-18. Retrieved 2012-07-20.
  13. ^ "Yahoo! Babelfish - redirects to Yahoo!". babelfish.yahoo.com. Archived from the original on 2006-05-04. Retrieved 2023-12-02.

External links

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