Timorese Decoding and Translation Contest

 "One naturally wonders if the problem of translation could conceivably be treated as a problem in cryptography.  When I look at an article in Russian, I say: 'This is really written in English, but it has been coded in some strange symbols. I will now proceed to decode.'"

(Warren Weaver, March, 1947)

Eligibility: Anyone who doesn't speak a Timorese language is eligible! (The language in this contest is called "Tetun")
You can enter solo or as a two-person team.

We provide:

• Parallel Timorese-English text with over 1000 sample translated sentences. You can get individual files one sentence per line by clicking over (Timorese or English). Or you can get everything in one file by clicking here (format is English sentence, Timorese translation, blank-line, and repeat).
• 10 new Timorese sentences with actual human English translations hidden from view!

To enter:

• Translate those 10 Timorese sentences into English as best as you can (there will be lots of guesswork!), and send your translations double-spaced to katya@isi.edu.

Prizes:

• best scoring set of translations
• best translation of a single sentence
• worst translation of a single sentence
• funniest translation of a single sentence
• "close-but-no-cigar" award

Important Dates:

1. Warning: the correct answers may be somewhere on the web (as non-Timorese speakers, we used some international-relations documents to build the contest).  Please avoid looking up the answers there!
2. It's certainly possible to work manually, in the style of the traditional pencil-and-paper code breaker.  You may want to develop some simple software tools/scripts to help you search through the sample translations, however.  If you want to make tools available to others, or if you want to share data-crunching results, please send e-mail. For example, here is a tool that will retrieve Timorese-English sentence pairs containing a user-specified word or phrase.
3. Enter if you can!  Not only can you win a great prize, but you can contribute significantly to machine translation research and to increased communication among the peoples of the world!
4. A small get-your-feet-wet puzzle is also available with answers.