Google Translate adds 24 new languages including Sanskrit

These are the first languages on Google Translate to use the zero-shot machine translation.

May 12, 2022 at 8:58 pm

1 minute read

Cupertino-based tech giant Google at the annual Google conference I/O has announced improvements to its translation tool Google Translate with the addition of 24 new languages including 8 Indian languages. The free to use service now supports a total of 133 languages from across the globe.

Google said that the newly added languages are used by over 300 million people globally. Google Translate now also supports Indigenous languages of the Americas namely Quechua, Guarani and Aymara. Google Translate will support a dialect of English for the first time with Krio from Sierra Leone.

Newly added Indian languages on Google Translate include Sanskrit, Assamese, Bhojpuri, Dogri, Konkani, Maithili, Mizo and Meiteilon (Manipuri). With this, the total number of Indian languages supported by this translation toll has reached 19.

In an interview with The Economic Times, Isaac Caswell, a Google Translate Research Scientist said, “Sanskrit is the number one, most requested language at Google Translate, and we are finally adding it. We are also adding the first languages from northeast India, which is another rather underrepresented place.”

On the addition of new languages, he said, “This ranges from smaller languages, like Mizo spoken by people in the northeast of India — by about 800,000 people — up to very large world languages like Lingala spoken by around 45 million people across Central Africa.”

These are the first languages on Google Translate to use the zero-shot machine translation. Caswell said in a blog post, “While this technology is impressive, it isn’t perfect. And we’ll keep improving these models to deliver the same experience you’re used to with a Spanish or German translation, for example.”

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Abhinav Kumar

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Abhinav is an editor at OnlyTech. He is a tech enthusiast who loves to read and write about new things. He spends most of his time tinkering with smartphones or computers when not writing about tech.

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r rahul1117kumar Feb 18, 2016 #1

Google's Translate on Wednesday introduced support for 13 new languages. It claimed that with the latest addition, Google Translate now serves 103 languages and the search giant says the app approximately covers 99 percent of the online population.
The 13 new languages now supported by
Google Translate are Amharic, Corsican, Frisian, Kyrgyz, Hawaiian, Kurdish (Kurmanji), Luxembourgish, Samoan, Scots Gaelic, Shona, Sindhi, Pashto, and Xhosa. Out of the 13 new languages, Sindhi is one which is spoken by people in India as well as Pakistan.
Sveta Kelman, Senior Program Manager, Google Translate, in a blog post said that the new 13 languages combine "120 million new people to the billions who can already communicate with Translate all over the world." Google uses machine learning to identify statistical patterns at enormous scale, so the machines can "learn" the language. At the same, Kelman talked about how Google's Translate relies on its Community of users to help improve current Google Translate languages and add new ones.
"As already existing documents can't cover the breadth of a language, we also rely on people like you in Translate Community to help improve current Google Translate languages and add new ones, like Frisian and Kyrgyz," said Kelman. Google Translate so far has done approximately 200 million translated words which also received help from over 3 million people who contributed. Google revealed that the latest update will roll out to users in coming days.
Kelman also talked about how Google back in 2006 relied on machine learning-based translations between English and Arabic, Chinese and Russian. Google, ahead of International Mother Language day on February 21, has also asked people to get involved in Translate Community.

Google Translate Now Supports 103 Languages, Including Sindhi | NDTV Gadgets360.com

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r rahul1117kumar Apr 29, 2016 #2

Google Translate has indeed come a long way. The service which began with support for just 2 languages, ten years ago now supports 103 languages and is used today by hundreds of millions of people worldwide every day.

More than just an app, Google’s Translate service helps connect communities and bridge barriers during tough times like what was witnessed and explored recently by Google during the migration crisis.

Another interesting fact is that more than 500 million people use Translate, and the most common translations are between English and Spanish, Arabic, Russian, Portuguese and Indonesian. All-in-all, Google translates an astounding 100 billion words on a normal day.

Surprisingly, Google Translates success can also be attributed to the Translate Community that helps the service improve and even add new languages to the system. The Community also helps validate the translations and Google says that few translations do go a long way.

And when it comes to languages there is indeed no other country that comes to mind other than India. And Google has indeed done its part by supporting 22 Indian languages. A recent addition was English to Hindi translation for the visual translation feature, which was added earlier this year.

Google Translate completes 10 years; up from 2 to 103 languages! Tech2 Mobile