Google Translate gets support for 110 new languages

As more and more AI-driven solutions become available in most areas of the tech world, Google Translate receives its most generous update so far. Thanks to it, this service gets support for no less than 110 new languages via the PaLM 2 large language model. This is not the first time Google has used AI to add support for new languages. Two years ago, 24 were added using Zero-Shot Machine Translation, and Google has expressed its commitment to support the 1,000 most spoken languages with the help of AI models.

The latest Google Translate update provides translation services to about 8% of the world's population, with one-quarter of the 110 new languages coming from Africa. The list of such languages includes Fon, Kikongo, Ga, Swati, Venda, Luo, and Wolof. In addition to these, the update also includes Afar, Cantonese (overlapping with Mandarin in writing, thus a challenge to translate), Tok Pisin (an English-based creole and the lingua franca of Papua New Guinea), NKo, Manx (the Celtic language of the Isle of Man, whose last native speaker died in 1974 but is now being revived by thousands of users), and many others.

Google Translate receives the new languages on the web at translate.google.com, but the changes also carry on to the dedicated app that is currently available for Android and iOS devices. Available in both Kindle and paperback formats, David Maji's Mastering Google Translate: How to Use it Effectively for Translation can be obtained for free with Kindle Unlimited ($3.99 to buy) or $7.83 (the printed copy).