Translation; the changes through the decades

“Give me enough parallel data, and you can have a translation system in hours” claimed Franz Joseph Och, following his software becoming one of the top 23 Arabic and English translation systems judged by the US Department of Commerce in a trial (Mankin 2003). The main focus of this paper is on one of man's most innovative concepts ‘Machine Translation’ and its significance in the past, present and future, particularly in relation to Arabic language in the modern world. This paper will analyse MT in-depth as a fundamental system of language conversion both from a contemporary and historical perspective. MT will be looked at from all angles, which includes the fact that research and funding got so much reduced at one point of time, halting the progress of this research and development. The importance of MT will be understood through a detailed examination of all its advantages in today's world where communication across international fronts is the key to globalization. Advancement of technology is rapid, almost an everyday happening where the world of translation has to be kept updated in order to allow the international community to continue business and communication. Machine Translation systems need to be improved on a regular basis if the companies have to keep up pace