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Article published In: Übersetzen und Dolmetschen im juristischen Bereich / Traduction et interprétation juridiques / Legal Translation and Interpreting: Technologie – Outsourcing – Veränderungen / Technologie – externalisation – transformations / Technology – Outsourcing – Shifts
Edited by Frans De Laet, Reiner Heard and Miodrag Vukčević
[Babel 66:2] 2020
► pp. 294–310

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Turns of the centuries. The Transkribus automated tool for recognition, transcription and translation of handwritten historical documents

A German-Serbian case study

 | University of Belgrade
Published online: 7 April 2020
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/babel.00159.vuk
Abstract
The translation of handwritten historical documents faces many challenges due to variation in the writing style, local language, and an inevitable language change. Even the transliteration from Cyrillic to Latin characters is standardized by the bijective transliteration standard ISO 9. This presentation introduces a number of tools offered by Transkribus for the automated processing of documents, such as Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) and Document Understanding, which are needed for the translation of historical documents. Next to the problem of decoding handwritten documents, written for example in Kurrentschrift using ancient terminology, changed meanings and different spelling have additionally to be considered during the translation of texts from earlier centuries. Resolution strategies on a case study show different methods for ensuring quality translations.
Résumé
La traduction de documents historiques manuscrits est confrontée à de nombreux défis en raison de variations dans le style d’écriture dans la langue locale et d’une évolution inévitable de la langue. Même la translittération des caractères cyrilliques en caractères latins est normalisée par la norme de translittération bijective ISO 9. Dans cet exposé, nous présentons un certain nombre d’outils offerts par Transkribus pour le traitement automatisé de documents, tels que la reconnaissance de texte manuscrit et la compréhension de documents, qui sont nécessaires pour traduire des documents historiques. Outre le problème de décodage des documents manuscrits, écrits par exemple dans ce que l’on désigne par le terme Kurrentschrift, l’utilisation d’une terminologie ancienne, les changements de sens et les différentes orthographes doivent également être pris en compte lorsque l’on traduit des textes datant de siècles passés. Les stratégies de résolution concernant une étude de cas présentent différentes méthodes qui garantissent des traductions de qualité.
Article outline
  • 1.Cultural rapprochement process and digital era
  • 2.Standards in German-Serbian cooperation in the administrative area
  • 3.Historical handwritten documents in legal translation process
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
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