Google Translate has recently expanded its language offerings by adding 110 new languages, including Cantonese, Punjabi (Shahmukhi), and NKO. This brings the total number of languages supported by Google Translate to over 100, making it a valuable tool for communication and information gathering. About a quarter of the new languages come from Africa, and together, they represent 614 million speakers, accounting for about eight percent of the world’s population.
The addition of these new languages is made possible by Google’s LLM, a key component of the AI technology that powers Google Translate. By utilizing the LLM, Google can efficiently learn and support languages that are closely related to each other, such as Awadhi and Marwadi, as well as French Creoles like Seychelles Creole and French Creole of Mauritius. According to Isaac Caswell, a Senior Software Engineer at Google Translate, continued advancements in technology and collaboration with expert linguists and native speakers will allow for even more language varieties and spelling conventions to be supported in the future.
Google Translate’s last major update in May 2022 leveraged Zero-Shot Machine Translation, a technology that enables models to learn new languages without the need for specific examples. This innovation was followed by the launch of the 1000 Languages Initiative, which aims to develop AI models capable of supporting the 1000 most commonly spoken languages globally. Through these efforts, Google is working towards making language barriers less of an obstacle and promoting cross-cultural communication on a global scale.
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https://www.engadget.com/google-uses-ai-to-add-110-new-languages-to-translate-123009750.html
