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Comment by enkid | Hacker News Reader

The problem is that there are complex concepts that translate to a single syllable in some languages but requires a lot of context or explanation in other languages. Would these be "single instructions" or multiple? Then when you really break it down, many concepts are used grammatically but are not required based on their context. Should you count that as extraneous or not? An example is that some languages use a case system to indicate the epistemology of a statement, how the speaker knew that information (i.e. saw it first hand, heard it second hand, or saw evidence of it). Depending on the context, this may be vital or extraneous. Therefore the same statement that is "compressed" to remove useless information would be compressed two different ways. That doesn't seem feasible. All of this is to say, this sounds good in theory, but the complexities on practice are insurmountable.

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> single syllable in some languages but requires a lot of context or explanation in other languages

then don't these other langs do a 'bad job' at compression ?

> That doesn't seem feasible

In general maybe not. But for some restricted 'assembly' ?

"The cat is on the table" has no ambiguity. And in some langs like Polish it compresses better : "Kot jest na stole" (Cat is on table), same info, better syllable-wise compression (5 vs 7).

"The cat" has different information in it than "kot." That same sentence also translates to "A cat is on the table," but no English speaker would say "the cat" and "a cat" have the same meaning. In fact, I can't think of a context where both sentences would be interchangeable. The listener either already knows which cat is "the cat" or would be confused. "A cat" implies an unknown cat. If you walk into your house and say "a cat is on the table," the assumption is its an unknown cat. If you say "the cat" it's most likely a pet. In some contexts that matters and some it doesn't, therefore you can't just say Polish compresses better.

"The cat" is folksy/chummy in a similar way to "the wife".

From a data compression/language efficiency standpoint, both sentences in both languages actually rely on a (potentially large) amount of unstated context to sort out these ambiguities. In some languages, this context can be totally unspoken and merely known to both the speaker and the listener. This absolutely MUST be accounted for if a truly correct translation is to be made.

For instance, your assumption that the definite "the cat" is being used idiomatically like so: this sentence, used in the manner you offer, might be used in conversation might occur in a farmhouse somewhere between an old man and woman who have lived together in this house for a long time, i.e. American Gothic. There's a vast amount of shared information and a perception of very little ambiguity held by both the speaker and the listener (whether correct or mistaken!). Any of those might fail. Furthermore, to use this sentence in English unadorned by context requires that both the speaker and listener have a shared reference to _what_ cat is being referred to by the definite article, "the". This very well might come with an unambiguous default in other languages!

Translation only gets more complicated from this.

While that's true, anyone with a cat can tell you that their house instantly becomes a farmhouse, and they age years at a time on the spot as a result of said feline. The context is kind of a given.

Different languages "compress" different things depending on what was needed. The Qin emperor did not know of limited liability companies, due to the concept being invented several hundred years later in Europe, so Chinese writes "有限责任公司" where an English speaker would write "ltd."

Kanji look very compressed, and can convey a lot in a single character, but if there isn't one for your needs things can get ugly. Whereas English speakers find it much easier to borrow, shorten, abbreviate, or make up words for convenience.

Kedi masada.

In Turkish if you say kedi you mean the cat. The copula is in the third person is conveyed by an empty word at the end of a sentence.

Masada bir kedi var.

There is a cat on the table. A cat is on the table. A cat is said as one cat = bir kedi.

*Bir kedi masada.

Doesn’t work. This says a cat on the table. It’s an ellipsis.

> the complexities on practice are insurmountable.

“Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra” begs to differ

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