From clay tablets to AI:
the history of translation

Ever wondered where it all began? Was the first act of translation at the Tower of Babel, or on a clay tablet in ancient Mesopotamia? Long before machine translation and AI, people were already finding ways to bridge languages across empires, faiths, and trade routes.

Exploring the history of translation helps us better understand how it has shaped the world we live in today. From early scribes to modern linguists, it’s a story of communication, culture, and constant (r-)evolution.

1. Clay, cuneiform and early bilingual texts (c. 2000 BC)

The history of translation can be traced back to Mesopotamia circa 2000 BC. Bilingual tablets in Sumerian and Akkadian, often detailing trade agreements, property laws, or rituals, demonstrate early examples of professional translation. These scribes were essential mediators in multilingual societies.

The Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the world’s oldest literary texts, was translated into multiple languages across the Mesopotamian empires.

Early translators in this period were typically scribes employed by palace or temple institutions. Their role was not just to convert language, but to adapt content for cultural and legal relevance.

The emergence of bilingual dictionaries on clay tablets further shows a structured approach to translation, foreshadowing the glossaries and term banks we use today.

2. Treaties and bilingual diplomacy (c. 1259 BC)

One of the earliest known international treaties, the Treaty of Kadesh (~1259 BC), was recorded in both Egyptian hieroglyphics and Akkadian cuneiform (the diplomatic lingua franca of the time). This bilingual document illustrates the vital role translation played in international diplomacy, even among rival kingdoms like the Egyptians and Hittites.

This agreement ended years of conflict between the two empires. It included exact copies translated into both languages to ensure mutual understanding and comprehension. The dual inscriptions reveal how translation was a political tool used to build trust, prevent conflict, and assert power, particularly when each version portrayed its ruler as the victor.

3. Scripture and meaning: the Septuagint (third to first century BC)

Between the third and first centuries BC, Jewish scholars in Alexandria translated the Hebrew scriptures into Greek, creating the Septuagint. It wasn’t a literal word-for-word translation. Instead, it focused on meaning and accessibility. This approach sparked one of the earliest debates in the history of translation: the debate between fidelity and readability.

The Septuagint had a profound influence on early Christianity, as it was widely read and quoted in the New Testament. It also set a precedent for translating sacred texts, where preserving spiritual intent often took precedence over rigid adherence to structure. This period marks a key moment when translation began to shape religious identity and doctrinal interpretation.

4. Latin legacy and vernacular voices (fourth to ninth century AD)

Medieval Europe relied heavily on Latin. However, figures like Jerome, who translated the Bible into Latin (the Vulgate), and Alfred the Great, who championed Old English translations, played a crucial role in facilitating the translation of religious and philosophical works into local languages. These translations marked a shift in power from institutions to the people.

Jerome’s Vulgate became the Catholic Church’s official Bible for over a millennium. Alfred’s efforts aimed to educate clergy and the wider public in their native tongue, encouraging literacy and intellectual growth. These moments signalled a transition from translation as elite scholarship to a public good.

5. Golden knowledge: the Islamic translation movement (eighth to tenth century AD)

During the eighth to tenth centuries, the Islamic Golden Age saw a massive translation effort at Baghdad’s House of Wisdom. Greek, Persian, and Sanskrit texts were translated into Arabic by polymaths such as Hunayn ibn Ishaq, whose translations of Galen’s medical texts had a significant influence on science in both the East and the West. It was a golden era in the history of translation.

Translation was state-sponsored and considered a moral duty. Translators adapted and improved upon ancient texts, adding their commentary. This fusion of knowledge eventually flowed back into Europe, fuelling the later Renaissance. Arabic versions of Aristotle, for instance, became central to European academic curricula.

6. Toledo: cross-cultural collaboration (twelfth to thirteenth century AD)

In medieval Spain, Toledo became a hub where Christian, Jewish, and Muslim scholars translated Arabic works into Latin. Philosophers like Aristotle re-entered European discourse through these efforts, catalysing the Renaissance. This multilingual collaboration remains a shining example of how translation fuels knowledge throughout the centuries.

Notably, translation was often a two-step process: a native Arabic speaker would translate into a local Romance language, which was then rendered into Latin by a Christian scholar. The effort was messy, multilingual, and deeply collaborative ─ proof that translation has always been about people working together.

7. The printing press revolution: Gutenberg’s impact (1444 AD)

When Johannes Gutenberg introduced the movable-type printing press in Germany around 1444, it revolutionised how knowledge was recorded, reproduced, and translated. For the first time in history, books could be mass-produced, drastically reducing the cost and time required to copy texts by hand.

This invention accelerated the translation of religious and scholarly works, enabling wider access to information in multiple languages. Key texts such as the Bible were soon translated and disseminated across Europe, amplifying literacy and reshaping education and religion. The printing press laid the groundwork for modern publishing and localisation.

8. Faith in the vernacular: reformation Bibles (fourteenth to seventeenth centuries AD)

Religious reformers like Martin Luther (German Bible), William Tyndale (English New Testament), and John Wycliffe (1382 English Bible) revolutionised access to scripture. The King James Version (1611) became one of the most influential texts in the English language. These efforts redefined the relationship between language, faith, and identity.

Translation in this era was a radical act, sometimes punishable by death. Tyndale was executed for his work, while Luther’s translation helped standardise the German language. These Bibles didn’t just change religion; they shaped national identity and the development of modern European languages.

9. The Rosetta Stone: breaking the code of a civilisation (discovered 1799, written 196 BC)

Discovered in 1799, the Rosetta Stone featured a decree written in Greek, Demotic, and Egyptian hieroglyphs that dates back to 196 BC. It enabled Jean-François Champollion to decipher ancient Egyptian, making it one of the most famous artefacts in the history of translation. Without the Rosetta Stone, vast swathes of Egypt’s written history would’ve remained unread.

Its importance lies not just in the content but in its trilingual nature. By comparing the known Greek text to the mysterious hieroglyphs, linguists gained a methodology that unlocked thousands of years of Egyptian civilisation. This made the Rosetta Stone the ultimate linguistic decoder ring.

10. Theory in translation: from Cicero to Schleiermacher (first century BC and nineteenth century AD)

The Renaissance wasn’t just about art and science; it also reshaped translation. Roman thinkers, such as Cicero and the later German philosopher Friedrich Schleiermacher, introduced competing ideals: should a translation sound natural to the reader, or preserve the original’s feel? This debate, between domestication (localisation) and foreignisation, remains central in the history of translation to this day.

Cicero and Horace favoured sense-for-sense translation, especially in rhetorical or poetic contexts. Schleiermacher, writing in the 1800s, argued for preserving the foreignness of a text. These ideas laid the groundwork for modern translation studies and the translator’s evolving role as both mediator and creative force.

11. Precision and scholarship: enlightenment to the Industrial Age (eighteenth to nineteenth centuries AD)

With the rise of encyclopaedias, grammar books, and academic societies, the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries professionalised translation. Chinese thinker Yan Fu introduced Western scientific texts into Chinese, applying a unique theory of translation: “faithfulness, expressiveness, elegance”.

During this period, national academies established linguistic standards, and translators played a crucial role in supporting the empire, science, and diplomacy. Yan Fu’s translations introduced ideas such as Darwinism to China and reflected a broader shift: translation as a force for modernisation and intellectual independence.

12. The first translation by a machine (1954)

In 1954, Georgetown University and IBM conducted the first public machine translation experiment, translating 60 Russian sentences into English using just six grammar rules. Though rudimentary, it marked a new chapter in the history of translation: the birth of computational linguistics.

This demonstration sparked excitement about the potential of automation, particularly during the Cold War when fast Russian-English translation was in high demand. Although progress was slower than expected, it paved the way for decades of research. It laid the foundation for modern translation engines.

13. Translation gets a toolkit: CAT and TMs (1990s)

From the 1990s, translators began using Computer-Aided Translation (CAT) tools. Software like Trados introduced translation memories (TM) and term databases, speeding up repetitive work while improving consistency. These tools transformed how professional translators work to this day.

CAT tools didn’t replace human translators; they enhanced them. By recognising previously translated segments, translators could focus on nuance while maintaining consistency. These developments helped support large-scale localisation projects and multilingual content strategies in the digital age.

14. Neural networks and real-time AI (2010s to present)

By the 2010s, Neural Machine Translation (NMT) brought leaps in fluency and context-awareness. Services like DeepL and Google Translate offered quick, reasonably accurate translations. Still, these tools can miss nuance, tone, or cultural context, making human oversight essential (post-editing).

Unlike earlier rule-based or statistical machine translation systems, NMT learns from vast amounts of multilingual data. It predicts entire sentence structures, resulting in smoother, more human-like output. But for sensitive or specialised content, a professional human translator is still irreplaceable.

15. The human element: why translators still matter (today and beyond)

Despite technological advancements, translation remains a deeply human endeavour. Scholars like Lawrence Venuti and Damion Searls highlight how tone, subtext, and emotional rhythm defy algorithms. Cultural intuition and ethical judgment can’t easily be automated. Post-editing remains one of the most crucial human steps in a machine or AI translation process.

Language is tied to identity, and meaning extends beyond vocabulary. Whether translating legal contracts, poetry, or marketing slogans, human translators read between the lines. They ensure your message doesn’t get lost in translation, because the right words matter.

Why the history of translation matters for SwissGlobal

• A bridge through time: We build on thousands of years of translation expertise to serve your organisation today.
• Technology with purpose: Tools are powerful, but human expertise ensures quality and reliability.
• Cultural clarity: Every word must carry meaning across borders and industries.
• Tradition meets innovation: Understanding the past helps us future-proof communication.

At SwissGlobal, we honour the past while working at the frontier of translation technology, where language meets trust, and words move the world. Contact us today for all your translation needs.