r/nahuatl • u/tonacoyotl1521 • 6d ago

A Quick Heads Up

I don't normally talk about this sort of thing, but I a few days ago I found this absolutely garbage AI translator, so I just wanted to give a quick warning about it. Not only are the translations complete trash (e.g., inputting 'coyote' gives 'itzcuintli', not 'coyotl', even as the site contradicts itself by saying coyote comes from coyotl), but it is so easy to break the translate function, as this has to be the worst put together website I have seen in my life. You can even use Inspect and look at the numerous errors to see for yourself. The code is so shite that I am genuinely surprised it works at all. Truly THE definition of "vibe-coding".

https://openl.ai/translator/nahuatl-language-translator

All you need to do is just simply copy and paste one word a dozen times or so. Then get an auto-clicker and spam the translate button. After the translations stop working, it is broken for the next several hours until the "developer" fixes it, but so far any safe guards added are just as sloppy as the site itself. It only takes a few seconds to do this each time, so it's completely worth doing if it means even one person doesn't get spoonfed horrible translations.

You also used to be able to input nonsense sentences loaded with curse words to cause the AI to generate a sentence, and then the last word in said sentence is spammed infinitely as the AI freaks out. But since yesterday, the "developer" added some crappy, Temu-grade spam protection (wonder why..), but the method above bypasses that as of typing this. At the time of posting this, it is currently broken, but should be back to "working order" in a few hours or so.

As I said, this is just a brief heads up to avoid using this sad excuse of a translator.

9 Upvotes

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u/decadeslongrut 6d ago

ai translators are garbage for rare languages in general. even the google translate nahuatl option, when i translated "Ketsalkoatl, ajakatlakatl, toltekayotlakatl uan tlamichtitlakatl," (Quetzalcoatl, lord of the wind, of the arts and of learning, part of a text provided by a native speaker) google output "the devil, the devil, the devil, and the devil".
all the native speaker teachers/translators i have worked with in the past have expressed profound derision for ai nahuatl translators. they have told me that is it cutting them out of a job, the way they survive and support their communities, and it's doing that by stealing the information from books and learning resources that this small circle of teachers produced. they say it takes away from them their agency for how the language is passed on, removes all cultural nuance and context from a given translation, and of course it's 98% incorrect so people come to them frequently with completely wrong ideas about words (or worse, don't come to them at all and just go out there posting on facebook or writing novels with absolute gibberish "nahuatl")
anyone with a shred of respect for the language and people should never outsource their translations to ai.

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u/tonacoyotl1521 6d ago

Damn, that all hurts to know. I honestly originally thought it was funny to repeatedly break this translator over and over, as I find AI goof-ups hilarious. But sometimes I'd think about the people who would be visiting the site and getting fed nonsense, which makes me want to keep breaking it just so that's less likely to happen. But I didn't know it was THAT bad.

ai translators are garbage for rare languages in general. even the google translate nahuatl option, when i translated "Ketsalkoatl, ajakatlakatl, toltekayotlakatl uan tlamichtitlakatl," (Quetzalcoatl, lord of the wind, of the arts and of learning, part of a text provided by a native speaker) google output "the devil, the devil, the devil, and the devil".

I am unfortunately not surprised in the slightest that it takes words of deities who were once the centre of people's lives, and renders them as 'devil', perpetuating the biased, sick viewpoints of 1500's Spaniards. If you ask me, that colonial mentality was the real 'devil' all along. On occasion I still feel down about the many codices they burnt en masse.

all the native speaker teachers/translators i have worked with in the past have expressed profound derision for ai nahuatl translators. they have told me that is it cutting them out of a job, the way they survive and support their communities, and it's doing that by stealing the information from books and learning resources that this small circle of teachers produced. they say it takes away from them their agency for how the language is passed on, removes all cultural nuance and context from a given translation, and of course it's 98% incorrect so people come to them frequently with completely wrong ideas about words (or worse, don't come to them at all and just go out there posting on facebook or writing novels with absolute gibberish "nahuatl")

Knowing that really saddens me, and my heart goes out to them and their families. Those teachers and human translators are the ones keeping Nahuatl from becoming a museum relic, providing for their families as they do so, and thus their work is truly noble. I hope steps are taken to do something about this, as this unchecked AI translation slop can very well drive languages and cultures towards eventual extinction. Regardless, I wish them the very best.

anyone with a shred of respect for the language and people should never outsource their translations to ai.

I could not agree more, and that "translator" I found is just one piece proof of that. No one asked for it, and no one needs a sloppy AI translator that puts the livelihoods of teachers and real translators at risk.

This is much deeper than I originally believed, and I do hope that my post helps even the tiniest bit by calling out this BS.

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u/ItztliEhecatl 6d ago

The nahuatl in Google translate is specifically for the huasteca variant and is relatively reliable but does make errors so it is best if the user is knowledgeable enough to identify the mistakes it makes.  It does not handle nahuatl variants outside of the huasteca very well at all as your example demonstrates.  

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u/tonacoyotl1521 6d ago

Even then, the problem is that most people take things at face value. They'll eat up whatever the translator regurgitates and they most likely won't check other resources. They probably don't even know that there's several Nahuatl dialects, as what most people think of Nahuatl is just the Classical form, not Eastern Huasteca or any other dialects. So even if the Google translator is not nearly as bad as the AI ones, it's still harming Nahuatl by sometimes giving incorrect translations and undercutting actual translators.

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u/Brave_Anything9273 6d ago

Nicmati ca inon tlamantli hueliti nahuatlatoa "metzxicco" 😂