Google Translate adds support for 110 languages, representing 614 million users

Google today announced that it’s adding support for 110 languages ​​to its translation service. The company used its PaLM 2 AI model to support translations.

These languages ​​include Afar, Cantonese, Manx, Nko, Punjabi (Shahmukhi), Tamazight (Amazigh), and Tok Pisin. The company said the newly added languages ​​represent greater than 614 million speakers, or about 8% of the world’s population.

Google noted that these languages ​​are at different stages of use. While a few of them have 100 million speakers, others don’t have any lively speakers, but individuals are working to preserve these languages.

Google says it takes things like regional variations, dialects and different spelling standards under consideration when adding language support.

“Our approach was to prioritize probably the most commonly used varieties of every language. For example, Romani is a language that has many dialects throughout Europe. Our models produce text most closely related to the southern language Vlax Romani, a spread widely used on the Internet. However, it also combines elements from other countries, similar to the northern Vlax and the Balkan Roma,” Issac Caswell, a software engineer at Google, said in an announcement.

The addition of 110 languages ​​to Google Translate is a component of the support initiative 1000 languages ​​due to artificial intelligence, which was announced in 2022. That same 12 months, the corporate added support for 24 languages ​​spoken by over 300 million people in its one-shot model. With the most recent additions, Google Translate now supports 243 languages.

During WWDC, Apple announced that it’s adding Hindi support to its translation app. However, in comparison with Google, Apple Translate supports just over 20 languages.