The odd hidden messages of Google Translate

[Benway]

You can try this yourself. Open Google Translate and select Somali to English. Type combinations of two letters and sometimes odd phrases appear. ke [space] ke [space] etc. works.
I have "ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke pe" right now which reads "Sadducees worship". Adding another "pe" yielded "Believe it or not, it is time to worship". Continuing to add new two letter groups causes new and longer messages.
Probably a bored programmer, but strange and interesting.

 

[Charleh]

You can try this yourself. Open Google Translate and select Somali to English. Type combinations of two letters and sometimes odd phrases appear. ke [space] ke [space] etc. works.
I have "ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke pe" right now which reads "Sadducees worship". Adding another "pe" yielded "Believe it or not, it is time to worship". Continuing to add new two letter groups causes new and longer messages.
Probably a bored programmer, but strange and interesting.

Apparently the translation algorithm is based on comparisons of thousands of UN documents.

 

[Lynne]

You can try this yourself. Open Google Translate and select Somali to English. Type combinations of two letters and sometimes odd phrases appear. ke [space] ke [space] etc. works.
I have "ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke pe" right now which reads "Sadducees worship". Adding another "pe" yielded "Believe it or not, it is time to worship". Continuing to add new two letter groups causes new and longer messages.
Probably a bored programmer, but strange and interesting.

How did you figure this out? Does it work with other translations ?

 

[Charleh]

Yup. Japanese has tons of ones like that.

 

[Lynne]

Yup. Japanese has tons of ones like that.

Do you know why?