1. A system for translating atomic read-modify-write accesses, comprising: a computer processor; and a computer memory that stores instructions to cause the processor to: determine that a machine instruction of a first language specifies an atomic read-modify-write access for an address; generate machine instructions of a second language to perform an atomic access for the address if the address is aligned; generate machine instructions of the second language to acquire a global lock if the address is unaligned; generate machine instructions of the second language to perform a non-atomic access for the address if the address is unaligned; and generate machine instructions of the second language to release the global lock if the address is unaligned.