The world of languages can often throw up some odd translations due to the sheer complexity and varied ways of how diverse cultures have expressed themselves not to mention the customs of communities around the world. For these reasons, in a world of global communication professional translation services provided by professional translation agencies has played a pivotal role in connecting different language speakers as some words or expressions in one language could mean something completely different, gibberish, or worse offend in another language and in some cases it may simply not translate at all.

But in truth translation and localisation services have come so far in the recent decades and the growing amount of technological advancements in recent years has seen the acceleration of improved, fast translations amongst humans that we are now starting to look at communicating with animals!

We have already seen with the Temptations ‘catterbox’ device which is hoping to translate cat ‘language’ and how Swedish tech company Gavagai AB are hoping to gain an understanding of dolphin communications and now the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust along with ElephantVoices have developed through over 40 years of research a text/emoji to Elephant translator. So if you have ever wanted to greet your partner or tell that annoying co-worker to “get lost” like an elephant, well good news, you can do exactly that right now!

All you have to do is head over to Hello in Elephant which was launched on 12^th August 2017, World Elephant Day; input your phrase or emoji into the translator and you will be shown a quick video of the elephant translation. Other selected phrases include “I love you,” “Let’s go,” and “hello” to name a few.

But behind the fun of this elephant translator comes a serious message, the number of African elephants are decreasing at an alarming rate due to poaching and the effects of an ever-increasing human population. According to the Great Elephant Census the number of African elephants being as high as over 10 million at the start of the 20^th century and now less than 400 thousand there has been a major decline in the elephant population. Hopefully this elephant translator can highlight the way in which elephants communicate with each other as a way to raise awareness and as a result conserve the African elephant population.

Original story: National Geographic.