Post by Scott Beaumont

Google Translate is one of the most important tools we have in making the web more accessible to people around Asia-Pacific. And today, it supports 100 more languages than it did yesterday. This is our largest expansion in the last twenty years, made possible by #AI — which helps Google Translate learn related languages much more quickly. Here are just some of the languages from around Asia-Pacific that we’ve added overnight: ➕ #Balinese: a language with Indian influences — such as Sanskrit — spoken by over 3 million people in Indonesia.  ➕ #Cantonese: one of the most requested languages for Google Translate. Because written Cantonese often overlaps with Mandarin, it’s especially tricky to train AI models to handle. ➕ #Punjabi (Shahmukhi): the variety of Punjabi written in Perso-Arabic script, with around 100 million speakers.  ➕ #TokPisin: an English-based creole and the lingua franca of Papua New Guinea. Half the world’s webpages are in English, but less than 15% of the global population speaks it as a primary or secondary language. The way translation models are helping to break down language barriers and make the world's information accessible to far more people is truly nothing short of revolutionary.