"MAP": The Secure, Portable, Bio-optical, Knowledge Recording And Dissemination System (COOLINT)

The French have done it!  This new technology is absolutely amazing!

New Digital Attack Map From Google, Arbor Networks (Extreme COOLINT)

Google Ideas and Arbor Networks have recently made available a very interesting "digital attack map" that provides a live data visualization of Distributed Denial of service attacks around the world.  It is pretty cool stuff and well worth the look! (H/T to Rebeka for the link!  Thanks!)

Additional Language Resources For The Everyday Analyst

Ethnologue is one of additional language resources mentioned in this article

To conclude the three-part Linguistics blog saga, preceded by the Top 11 Online Language Learning Resources and the Top 10 Online Translation Services, here are a few excellent language resources for the intelligence analyst!

• Linguist or not, this one is important! The Ethnologue is the international authority on living languages, maintained by SIL International, a Christian linguistics group that originally founded the site in 1951 to translate bibles into local (and lesser-known) languages. Oh, how the site has grown since then! Search by language, search by region or search by country and you will find the full linguistic breakdown of almost any geographic area.

• Note: If you're interested in language mapping, World GeoDatasets provides the World Language Mapping System, the most current and up to date maps and GIS information on international language distribution. It is a collaboration between Global Mapping International and Ethnologue, but be warned, it is not cheap! 

• The World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS) is a comprehensive collection of linguistic sources searchable by language (every language you could possibly think of) or by language feature. You can search for Arabic, for example, (but which one? - this site lists 21 different dialects!) or something a bit more interesting, like Achuar or Waropen (they exist, I promise, and they aren't the strangest languages on this website). You could also search for language features like Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) word order, for example, or optional double negation. Either way, your search output will be a comprehensive list of scholarly sources written and published about the language you select.

• Omniglot is my third favorite online language resource. It is an encyclopedia of writing systems and languages. For many different languages (yes, all the strange languages you just encountered in the WALS, plus Tengwar (!), J. R. R. Tolkien's Elvish language), it provides the alphabet and the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) symbols. In addition to phonetic and transcription information, Omniglot provides a list of links that pertain to information about the language such as resources for learning the language and/or the writing system it employs. 

•  Voice of America's Pronunciation Guide is ideal if you are trying to learn how to pronounce foreign names and places correctly.  It won't help much with words but if you want to meet the standard for intelligence briefings, you have to know how to say the places and people correctly and the VOA takes away your last excuse.

Top 10 Free Online Translation Services

Ed. Note:  Since last week's language learning resource blog post was so well-received, consider this a second linguistically-inspired and - hopefully - equally well-received post (of which, I have no doubt, there will be many more). 

The reality of the situation is that this is what the world looks like. We live in an increasingly multilingual society and, as analysts, this inarguably affects our jobs. Daily. 

Figure 1: Languages of the World - Source: This wonderful data visualization

So in light of this increasingly multilingual operating environment, how do we make our jobs easier? 

Below is the answer (an answer, at least) to this question: A compendium of (free!) online machine translation services rank ordered by way of a little linguistics experiment!

Top 10 Online Translation Services

(rank ordered by number of languages translated and evaluated on a five point scale in terms of error rate - 5/5 is best)

1. Google Translate. 3/5

• I would be remiss in this post if I did not include the infamous Google Translate (for all the flack it gets, I really don't think they are too horrible). And besides, where else do you plan to translate from Azerbaijani to English? With 72 languages, they have the largest repository of the online translation services, but... then again, it's Google.

2. Dictionary.com Translator. 3/5

• The Dictionary.com translator is a close second with 53 translation languages, Icelandic and Maltese among them. The only downside is that there is a 300 character limit to translation so, if you're planning on dumping paragraphs into the translator (which you really shouldn't do anyway), this one is probably not for you. 

3. Bing. 3/5

• The Bing translator maintains a 44 language repository with a user interface (UI) as appealing as Google's, and the recent buzzing in the blogosphere gives Bing the edge over Google when it comes to translation services. 

4. Free Translation. 3/5

• Free Translation (using SDL translation services) translates from 41 languages (Bengali among them!), but only into the big five (English, Spanish, Italian, French and Portugese).

5. BabelXl. 3/5

• Babelxl translates 36 languages.

6. itranslate4.eu.

• This one is my personal favorite! As an avid linguist and frequent translator, I consider itranslate4.eu to be the most exciting find of the day. This site translates both in and out of 35 languages across many different search engines! Your output is the same translation provided by SYSTRAN, linguatec, PROMPT and others. This allows you to compare translations for greater comprehension and accuracy. Also, the language repository includes unexpected languages such as Breton (go ahead ... look it up), Esperanto, Kazakh and Occitan.

7. Babylon. 3/5

• Babylon translates 30, including two different forms of Chinese. It is very similar to the capabilities of Wordlingo and imTranslator. 

8. SYSTRANet. 0/5

• A little history: SYSTRAN is one of the oldest machine translation software (dating back to 1968) and, what do you know, they now have an online translator SYSTRANet. It translates out of 15 languages but only into the big 5. Google used SYSTRAN until circa 2007 and it is the current translation software behind the dashboard translator app for Mac OS X. 

9. Babelfish. 4/5

• Babelfish (not to be confused with Yahoo! Babel Fish, which is now the Bing translator) translates 14 languages both ways. Again, the 300 character limit applies.

10. Reverso. 2/5

• Reverso is an interesting site. It makes up for a clunky UI and limited language capacity (9 languages) with the option to have your full translation read to you in the target language simply by clicking a button. 

A Linguistics Experiment

Just in case you were wondering, I didn't arbitrarily invent the number out of five (after all, who am I to judge; as I said before, I use Google Translate...)

In order to evaluate the 10 translation services listed above, I took a snippet from an article written in Spanish and plugged it in to all 10 translation engines. Below are the resulting ratings out of five calculated by subtracting the number of errors from five.

This was a simple example and should in no way preclude you from trying all of these translation services at some point to determine your personal favorites, but based on this experiment, Babelfish returned the best translation.

This is what was translated into English: "Lingüistas de la Universidad de Glasgow han demostrado de que ver la televisión de manera activa puede cambiar rápidamente un determinado acento. Tal y como publican en la revista especializada Language, sus conclusiones se basan en el análisis de los efectos de la telenovela británica EastEnders, emitida por la cadena británica BBC, sobre el modo de hablar de los escoceses."

Common errors included:

• Failing to translate the infinitive Spanish verb "ver" into the gerund English equivalent watching (as opposed to watch). 
• Incorrect syntactical word order of adverbs in the first sentence such as actively ("de manera activa") and quickly ("rapidamente"). 
• No service except for Google Translate managed to successfully translate "revista especializada" to journal as opposed to specialized magazine.
• Mistranslation of the past participle "emitida" to various other English connotations such as emitted or issued.
• No service successfully translated the final clause "sobre el modo de hablar de los escoceces," which means "about the Scottish way of speaking" or, more colloquially, "about the Scottish accent." Common translations were: "the way to speak of the Scotts," "the way of speaking about the Scotts," and "how to talk about the Scotts." This is because in this clause, "de" can be interpreted to mean either "of" (correct) or "about" (incorrect); so this error was due to a mistranslation of the preposition.

**Note: Most U.S.-based translation services translate English-Spanish better than other languages because that is the language combination historically in the most demand within the United States. In short, the more obscure the language, the less accurate the translation. This translation experiment is probably a best case scenario.

For those interested in reading the article from which the sample text came, it is from the Muy Interesante (the New Science Magazine of Latin America) titled Ver la television puede cambiar tu acento! (Watching TV Can Change Your Accent). 

Don't speak Spanish? Use one of your new-found translation services!

Know of a trusted translation service not listed here? Leave a comment!

And finally, to conclude this linguistics saga of blog posts, check back on Wednesday for a post containing other language-related resources particularly relevant to analysis!

Top 11 Online Language Learning Resources (Or: How To Make Yourself More Attractive For US Government Intelligence Positions)

In fiscal year 2011, the National Intelligence Program (NIP) made payments to 7,507 government employees within the CIA, DIA, FBI, NGA and NSA for foreign language proficiency (See the Washington Post's breakdown of the so-called "Black Budget"). This is not surprising given the Director of National Intelligence's emphasis on foreign language capability within the US national security intelligence community.

Among the top foreign languages are all the usual suspects - Spanish, Arabic, and Chinese -whereas less common languages populate the "special interest languages" list - Tagalog, Punjabi, Somali and Urdu. 

Figure 1: Snippet of the US Army's Language Payment Incentives

Similarly, the scores on the Department of Defense's DLPTs (Defense Language Proficiency Tests) can earn you pay incentives within government positions and the US Army for each of three language lists - A, B and C - ranked by importance (See Figure 1).

What does this mean for entry-level intelligence analysts? 

It means that being bi- or multi-lingual is practically a pre-requisite for an intelligence analyst position.

Can't afford Rosetta Stone or other expensive programs? No time in a busy class schedule (or even busier work schedule) for a foreign language course?

Don't worry - You don't have to have a BA in Balkan Studies to pass a Serbo-Croatian language exam. There are plenty of (free!) online resources to help you achieve language proficiency levels all on your own. 

Below are the top language learning resources on the web according to the blogosphere:

• DuoLingo. The absolute best thing about DuoLingo is that it is free! The only downside is that it currently only offers instruction in six languages, all of them European (and four of them romance languages). Of the free resources, DuoLingo's classes are arguably the most structured (and they also have an app!)
• LiveMocha. A DuoLingo rival is LiveMocha. Though the premium version is not free, the unpaid offering is significantly more robust than a standard trial version (and with 35 languages, their selection trumps that of DuoLingo). An alternative to paying for the premium upgrade is engaging in the LiveMocha social network and tutoring or offering rudimentary language instruction as a native speaker of your mother tongue in exchange for credit, which can then be applied to your language program of choice.
• OpenCulture, the cultural education blog, features a compendium of resources for language learning in 46 languages. The first suggestion in the majority of the language lists points you towards free iTunes podcasts and downloads for language learning, largely posted by the Radio Lingua Network (entitled Coffee Break) and The Peace Corps. (Also, see OpenCulture's full list of free online courses from top universities).
• Busuu. Busuu is of the same ilk as LiveMocha - It is interactive with a robust social media component, but also provides limited content with expanded content provided for premium members. LiveMocha, however, provides many more languages than Busuu's limited 12 language offering. Despite these limitations, it remains one of the more highly ranked language learning resources on the Internet. 
• The US Department of State is also a good place to find language learning resources, though the Foreign Service Institute is likely for the more linguistically-inclined. The FSI posts all its language materials for 45 different languages online in an open source format including student text to audio recordings. Though the content is not aesthetically appealing and no instruction is provided, the resources are professionally-developed and highly useful, especially for those already fluent in the Linguistics vernacular.
• The Defense Language Institute/Foreign Language Center (DLI/FLC).  DLI is one of the very best language schools in the world.  In addition, it also provides a huge amount of its material for free.  Need a language survival guide in Bulgarian?  Try DLI.  Need a quick series of lesson in Afghan handwriting?  Try DLI. Need to know how to say "Goodbye!" in Balochi?  You guessed it - DLI.  There is a just an immense amount here and in a variety of hard-to-find foreign languages.
• Lang-8. Lang-8 is an interesting resource that provides a network of native speakers to correct foreign language writing submissions. It's pretty simple - You correct the submissions of others in your native language, and submit your writing to be corrected by others. Lang-8 boasts a network of native speakers from 180 different countries.
• RhinoSpike. RhinoSpike is a network similar to that of Lang-8 that facilitates the exchange of audio files alongside the text documents.

So now that you've got a collection of language learning resources on the Internet, there are a handful of what can only be considered recreational practice resources also available:

• iSketch. iSketch is my personal favorite.  I used to play this all the time when I was learning Spanish! It is essentially an online form of Pictionary that can be played in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese with variations in languages such as Turkish and Swedish. It is easy, informal, extremely entertaining and useful for practicing foreign language vocabulary.
• italki. italki is an online community of Skype users aimed at language learning. Pay for individual Skype lessons, or arrange Skype lessons in your target language in exchange for giving lessons in your native language.
• Verbling. Verbling operates around much the same concept as italki, but is a bit more structured. You can sign up for an attend group lessons (the schedule for which is broadcasted on the home page) or you can pay for private tutoring sessions (the going rate is typically $25/hr).

When it comes to language, nothing teaches better than in-person interaction. My recommendation is to pick up the basics of whatever language you seek to learn from list one, then do the majority of your language learning on list two connecting with and talking to native speakers of your target language.

My final caveat to this resource repository is that nothing (I mean, nothing) compares to a passport when it comes to learning a foreign language. Though a round trip ticket to Argentina is a lot more expensive than the one-time purchase of Rosetta Stone Spanish (though, probably not by much), the experience (and the language) will likely stay with you a lot longer. 

Do you have a good resource for online language learning?  Leave it in the comments!