дождь падает пустоты; бокал, который не является пустым.
(try to translate the statement above, using the Bing translator)
It is interesting to see what becomes of abstract meaning in language translations. Today I tried to find a point of equilibrium with abstract meaning, in a language translator. I had to work and refine both the English and Russian statements, until they reached an equilibrium, and both interpreted the statement with the same meaning. It was an interesting process. When discussing this with someone, I was told about Mojibake. This is a Japanese term for a failure in language translation within software. If a system can not interpret the word it encounters, it spews out gibberish. Some have tried to exploit this weakness, and get the software to produce meaning unintentionally. This relation of meaning to the technology used to carry it, is complex.
When I was young, I loved the Russian language. In part because it was so different from my native language, and the new alphabet made it easy for me to learn. My teacher would take us to cultual events at a local chuch. We would eat pelmini with vinegar and then stand for the Orthadox services, looking at the hand painted icons that surrounded us, and breathing in the strong smoky smell of incense. I go back to that place from time to time to remember. And to see the ancient books, hand written in Glagolitsa.
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