Yahoo! Gives Babel Fish a New Fish Tank

Online portal takes the Alta Vista Babel Fish language translator tool, which they own through an acquisition several years ago, and rebrands it to Yahoo! Babel Fish.

One of the oldest Web language translation tools got a fresh coat of paint yesterday as Yahoo! announced they were taking the old Alta Vista Babel Fish site and debuting it across their properties worldwide as Yahoo! Babel Fish. Alta Vista is owned by Yahoo! as a result of their acquisition of Overture back in 2003.

Yahoo! Babel Fish, said the online portal via their corporate blog, allows users to freely translate text or web pages across any choice of 38 language pairs. Yahoo! has added to the basic functionality of Babel Fish by adding two more language pair choices (Simplified Chinese into Traditional Chinese, and Traditional Chinese into Simplified Chinese), a “search translator beta” in Germany and France which allows users to “translate queries and search for web pages, images, and videos in multiple languages simultaneously” and tighter integration into Yahoo! services such their toolbar and search.

Online translation has long been a popular Web tool. Yahoo! Babel Fish’s chief competition is Google’s Translator page.