Google has significantly expanded its Translate service, adding 110 new languages using artificial intelligence (AI) technology. The new languages include Cantonese, Punjabi (Shahmukhi), and NKo, among others, representing about 614 million speakers or 8% of the global population.
Google credits its large language model, PaLM 2, as a key component in enabling Translate to more efficiently learn languages that are closely related to each other. This includes languages close to Hindi, like Awadhi and Marwadi, as well as French creoles like Seychellois Creole and Mauritian Creole.
According to Isaac Caswell, Senior Software Engineer at Google Translate, as technology advances and the company continues to partner with expert linguists and native speakers, they will be able to support even more language varieties and spelling conventions over time.
This latest expansion builds on Google’s previous efforts to expand Translate, such as the introduction of Zero-Shot Machine Translation in May 2022, which allowed the model to learn new languages without seeing examples. Google also announced the 1,000 Languages Initiative, which aims to create AI models capable of supporting the 1,000 most commonly spoken languages globally.
While Google Translate is not perfect, the service continues to evolve and improve, providing users with a helpful tool for gaining information or engaging in conversation across a growing number of languages.
