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MIT AI Deciphers Lost Languages, Identifies Language Families
The MIT CSAIL algorithm could help to uncover valuable hidden knowledge lost to time.
Culture & Entertainment
A group of researchers from MIT CSAIL has developed a new AI system that can automatically decipher and translate a lost language without knowledge of its relation to other languages.
The algorithm might help the team uncover entire bodies of hidden knowledge that are currently indecipherable.
While testing their system, the team from MIT were able to corroborate a recent academic study that said the language of Iberian is not related to the Basque language.
Led by MIT Professor Regina Barzilay the team of researchers wants their algorithm to, ultimately, have the capacity to decipher lost languages that have been indecipherable until now, using only a few thousand words.
As MIT explains in a press release about the new AI system, most of the languages that have existed throughout the history of humanity are no longer spoken, and at least half of the languages spoken today are predicted to vanish in the next 100 years.