What is impossible for AI is possible for humans.

As a result of the surging wave of technological advancement, artificial intelligence (AI) is hailed as a revolutionary invention today. Its impact is evident not only in scientific and technological fields but also in creative domains. In the literary world, particularly in the realm of translation, AI is making significant inroads.

Numerous AI tools are becoming available for translation, with more on the horizon. However, the extent to which these machine-driven translations are useful and accurate is a topic of global discussion.

While AI translation has made considerable progress, it still faces many limitations.

Discussions around translation, re-creation, and creative translation have emerged, including debates on literal and free translation. In truth, language is not merely a tool for expressing human emotions; it is a reflection of human culture, experience, feelings, history, and exploration. The world is filled with countless languages, both scripted and non-scripted.

Translating a thought born in one language into another requires more than just swapping words. This is where the process of "translation" begins. In some cases, there is a need to recreate the essence vividly, with soul intact, and this is where creative translation comes into play. In reality, sound and meaning are the two primary elements of language, and translating sound is far from straightforward. Only meaning can be effectively translated.

The linguistic charm of one language’s literature is not easily transferable to another. Thus, the translator’s task is to extract the meaning from the source language and imbue it with linguistic dignity in the target language. While it is true that some loss occurs in translation, just as some perfume is lost when poured from one bottle to another but the fragrance remains intact.

Indian languages offer greater opportunities for translation among themselves. The semantic worlds of Indian languages are largely similar, enabling translators to construct the required semantic framework with relative ease when translating from one Indian language to another. If writing is like walking on a knife’s edge, translating is like balancing on two. A translator must be proficient in both the source and target languages.

Another challenge in translation is capturing the voice of the text. A skilled writer’s style has a his own distinct voice, and a successful translation recognizes its importance, recreating it in the target language. The translator must also consider the writer’s perspective. Just knowing multiple languages do not guarantee great translations, assuming so would be a mistake.

Creative translation is not just about changing words it is about vividly recreating emotions, experiences, and culture in a new language. This requires a deep understanding of languages and their cultures, the creativity to craft the essence in a refined style, and the ability to create new expressions that resonate with the target audience. Here, the translator becomes not just a translator but a co-creator and writer, reshaping the original work in a new language with their unique style. Both translation and creative translation are vital to the world of languages, but creative translation is more closely tied to the essence of emotion. In this context, AI is paving new paths in understanding, translating, and using language.

Traditional translation relied heavily on human expertise. Today, AI tools can produce translations in seconds through techniques like machine learning, deep learning, and neural networks. These methods analyze sentence structures, word usage, and, to some extent, meaning. However, this offers only speed and convenience. Many challenges persist capturing the nuances of meaning, understanding cultural symbols, and achieving stylistic finesse is possible only through human experience.

When a single word has multiple meanings, discerning the appropriate one based on context is a challenge for machines but strength for humans. While AI translations are fast, they cannot fully respond to human emotions. Translation is not merely a transfer of words but an exchange of emotions, not a movement of sentences but a flow of feelings. This requires the human touch. Today efforts are underway in machine translation (MT), computer-assisted translation (CAT), and natural language processing (NLP). In the future, there will be a need to combine human expertise with AI’s speed and efficiency. AI can accelerate the translation process, but the driver of this journey remains the human and their creative power. Human emotion, experience, responsiveness, and passion breathe life into translation. AI tools may provide the foundation, but the human translator must build the edifice of translation.