Download a printable version of the November-December 2023 Beans'talk.

Artificial Intelligence & Bible translation

Last year, a professor at Carnegie-Mellon reached out for help for one of his PhD students. Her specialty is machine translation using large language models, with an interest in modifying the model to help Bible translation. She was looking for language data and someone who could evaluate her results. That's how Mark entered the picture.

At the end of October, after months of trying different things, Z defended her dissertation and passed. Surely the things she learned will help future translation projects. What a cool example of someone wanting to use their gifts to further the kingdom of God. Hurray for Z!

Field testing a new program

SIL, our linguistic organization that partners with Wycliffe, is working hard to develop new linguistic software. They have had their Fieldworks Language Explorer, or FLEx, out for some time. FLEx is the current computer tool for people to analyze, document, and better understand the languages they work in.

Now they’re working on FLExTrans for adapting Scripture from one related language to another. This tool has advantages over using the modified large language model approach, but it has some disadvantages, too. It also makes several improvements over the old package of programs, CARLA (Computer Assisted Related Language Adaptation), that Mark used for years while translating in Quechua. Since Mark has experience with related language adaptation, he is taking part in a field test. Helping to improve FLExTrans and understanding how much work it takes to get adequate results will help it be more useful for new teams. Mark also hopes to use it to help one of the teams he is consulting for.

Quechua class

The Quechua orientation course we wrote about last Beans’Talk will be over just in time for Thanksgiving. It is just as well that neither we nor some of the students had a solid block of time to hold classes. Having breaks in the schedule helped us keep ahead with preparing materials. It also gave the students more time to study and absorb the material. It has been a lot of work.

It’s never easy learning a new language. If you know someone learning a new language, encourage them and pray for them! Pray for diligence, perseverance, and a mind and tongue to grasp new things. Pray for break-throughs when they feel like they’ve hit a plateau. Pray for encouragement and the thrill of communicating with people in their own language. Pray for discipline to keep on keeping at it.

Mark

In addition to working with linguistic data to help computer programmers, Mark continues to check new Scripture translation and to mentor Antonio to be a translation consultant.

Mark was recently honored by being certified as a senior translation consultant by SIL International. Check it out on the SIL website here.

Update on our family

Andy’s son Jeremiah, our grandson with leukemia, is finally out of the hospital after receiving his bone marrow transplant mid-September. Twice a week he’s back at the hospital for blood work, medications, and various checks. He isn’t out of the woods yet, but we are thankful that he’s doing so well considering all the possibilities. Thank you for all your prayers!

Our daughter Emily in Australia is having a more difficult than usual pregnancy. There are baby issues and mommy issues. A C-section is planned for January 15th. Pray for God’s sustaining grace to hold everyone safely together.

The prayer request above for those learning languages is one that fits our middle son’s family.

Ernie recently underwent another surgery to take care of his hernia issues. Praying for a good recovery this time.

More Praise and Prayer Requests

• Praise for continued good health for Mark.

• Praise for the faithfulness of God. Pray that we might fix our gaze on things not seen rather than the momentary trials and afflictions that beset different family members and friends.

So thankful for you! We thank God for the encouragement he gives through so many of you. Enjoy the holiday season ahead celebrating with thanksgiving all God has done, is doing and has promised to do.

Mark & Patti Bean