One Click on "Translate" and My Blog Becomes the Tower of Babel

I have been in the blogging game for about nine months now. I absolutely love the ability to turn an idea, poem, essay, or news article into a web posting quickly for anyone to access. When I think back just ten years to what it was like when I was publishing my poetry only in chapbooks, the ability to publish instantly worldwide now is amazing to me. 

Since I started publishing my blogs on Wordpress, I have had readers in over seventy countries all around the world. That is extremely satisfying and encouraging to me. As a writer, the ability to share my thoughts around the world is a precious thing. Hell, I'm still impressed by the telephone, so the internet is a damn wonder to me even in 2014. When I consider the capabilities that creative types have to share their work today vs. one short generation ago, it is staggering. Sharing our ideas with others around the world and visa versa is allowing us all to grow, be challenged, and experience new things. 

There is a story in the Bible about the "Tower of Babel." As different tribes came together to build a tall building for unification, as the story goes, God was a bit worried about the capabilities that people would have if they worked together and had one language. So, He decided to go down and confuse their speech into different languages to hinder their progress and scatter them. See this link for a bit of history on that fable in the book of Genesis. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Babel

Artist's rendering of the mythical Tower of Babel

I would say based on the engineering ability of people back then, if the height of the Tower of Babel gave God pause, He is probably calling an emergency meeting in Heaven over the Burj Khalifa. Not only that, but the power of Goggle Translate is undoing the confusion brought on at the Tower of Babel. I speak figuratively of course, as I do not regard that Bible story as a historical event. But, it is worth mentioning for contrast and as a demarcation on the path of human progress. Thanks to Translate and other similar programs, the barriers of human communication are being broken down with a fury. I know the translations can be a bit quirky, but it's a hell of a lot better than trying to read something in an language you don't understand. 

Burj Khalifa, the tallest man made structure in the world at 829.8 m (2,722 ft).

All that said, I will be taking advantage of the translate option on Blogger, Google's blogging platform. Every new blog that I post on my Wordpress site and a selection of some already published will also be on my new Blogger site. There is a Translate gadget right on the front page which will allow people all over the world not only to read my blogs, but have the option to read the blogs in their own language with ease. 

Please check out my new Blogger site at the link. Feel free to follow me there or on Google + and check out the Translate feature. 

http://lukeaustindaugherty.blogspot.com/