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You ever think about how much more accessible the Bible is than Marxist theory? Found a YouTube channel that posts Bible audiobooks in small or endangered Indigenous languages of Turtle Island. (www.youtube.com)
submitted 3 months ago* by to c/chat@hexbear.net
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It's a thought I keep returning to. I can also mention https://deafbible.com/ — a site that has videos of Bible readings in a bunch of different sign languages, including some pretty obscure ones not even spoken in Christian-majority countries.

I guess it makes sense strategically for Marxist texts to not focus on perfect accessibility, since you're working with limited resources and the aim is more to develop enough of an educated vanguard to actually fight the revolution, than to spread the word to Absolutely Everybody like missionaries want to; but it still feels a bit unfair, doesn't it? Like if you can have false consciousness preached at you in your own language, why not class consciousness, y'know?

I guess this isn't really a topic with much potential to ignite discussion, but eh.

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[–] [S] 12 points 3 months ago (1 child)

I doubt these audiobooks are mistranslated in any meaningful way: these are actual native speakers making these audiobooks — I say "small and endangered languages", but I should be clear to say that these are languages with tens of thousands or even 100K+ L1 speakers — and they're apparently working off of old Bible translations from before the languages in question were endangered.

I'm assuming you're thinking of the absolute scourge of AI slop Indigenous language dictionaries and learning materials that are genuinely hampering efforts to revitalize these languages, but Today's Native isn't that, it is as far as I can tell just straight up Indigenous Christian boomers making content for other Indigenous Christian boomers.

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  • [–] 6 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    Interesting, good to know. I just assumed it was either AI slop or was people that barely/don't know the language, since that's been a problem in other cases

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  • [–] 5 points 3 months ago*

    Translation is a use-case for AI that I think is inarguably good. The quality of translation now in almost all languages is getting very useable and while it makes errors in some weird ways they are usually still quite understandable in the context they occur in.

    The number of things I have been able to access because translation is good now is much higher than it ever was before. Things that are far too niche for a human to bother doing. I will take MTL wherever human translation isn't already occurring voluntarily.

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