Mecca of Jacobean pilgrimages and destination each year for thousands of walkers from all over the world, the Santiago Cathedral continues to look for ways to reinvent its connection with its immense and diverse pastoral community. He published his latest proposal two months ago. … in a restricted manner, during its pilot tests – and today it is already a tool usable by those who wish: an innovative simultaneous translation system in five languages which allows, on the one hand, foreign visitors to follow the masses in their own language, in real time and from their cell phones. And, on the other hand, it allows hearing impaired people to benefit from services without restrictions. The application, based on artificial intelligence, was created to respond precisely to these needs, detected for years by its managers, the Cathedral Foundation.
Its director, Daniel Lorenzo, highlights in a conversation with ABC the enormous presence of faithful who do not speak Spanish and who, until recently, They attended the celebrations without being able to understand their content. “A good portion” of them, and “sometimes even the majority, do not speak Spanish,” and traditionally this reality has led to the insurmountable “difficulty” of being able to serve them in another way.
The new application – free and available on the App Store and Google Play – offers two modes: a reading mode with the translated text on the screen and an audio mode, with voiceover, compatible with traditional headphones. Currently works with English, German, French, Portuguese, Italian and —in the case of masses already taught in other languages— Spanish, and the system is designed to support hundreds of simultaneous connections without loss of quality. When operating, it uses its own algorithm to understand and synchronize speech played over the PA system, analyzing silences to reduce latency.
The Cathedral is for everyone
The final objective – on which work continues to refine the results – is that the translation comes almost at the same pace as the original voice, without interfering in the solemnity of the liturgical act or introducing foreign elements. Developing the system was not easy. Designing new elements that would allow “greater communication” with the faithful seemed “very difficult” a few years ago, Lorenzo recalls. Even when technological proposals appeared, the first tests showed how complex it would be to achieve a stable solution.
Some time later, the Cathedral Foundation decided to commission a study and start working with a small company in the Spanish Levant. The process was long, fraught with adjustments and failures: “It seemed like it was working pretty well and all of a sudden we were back,” he says. For months, the repetitions, the corrections and above all the training in the linguistic model were repeated: “You have to educate him” like any other, emphasizes Lorenzo, but in this case taking into account the particular sensitivity which surrounds the liturgies. An emotional surprise occurred during the tests with the people invited by the Association of the Deaf of Galicia. “They were very moved, one of them even cried,” remembers the director of the Cathedral Foundation. The possibility of following the mass by text, clearly and without barriers, opened doors for them. In the words of the collective, For them, this meant “an extraordinary breakthrough”. celebrate.
The application, by the way it is built, is specifically designed to work in connection with the sound system, which is why, for technical reasons, it cannot currently be transferred to other ecclesiastical activities, such as pastoral meetings or catechesis. But the doors are not closed to future expansions if in the future an infrastructure capable of supporting them is developed.
Connectivity capacity and stability is another milestone among the latest advancements. Tests carried out indicate that they can connect up to 500 people simultaneously, Lorenzo says: about half the temple’s capacity. The entire project was financed directly by the Cathedral Foundation, without specific external agreements: “It was little by little, with a lot of patience”, he explains about an initiative which, he insists, is far from being “improvised”, but rather responds to a sustained effort over the years. The result: a tool with which different languages, cultures and spiritualities can communicate in the same place and at the same time.
In the words of the director of the Cathedral Foundation, “it is quite simply a matter of that no one is excluded from what we experience here for not understanding the language (…). “When we make everyone understand what is being celebrated, the spiritual experience changes completely. »
About The Author
