Google Translate will now support Dholuo, the language of the Luo tribe, following a major language support update by Google.
This update is powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI) through Google’s PaLM 2 large language model, which also drives the company’s AI chatbot, Bard. Other new languages included in this update are Awadhi, Cantonese, and Marwari.
According to Google, they seek to break down language barriers and better understand the world around them.
The tech giant announced that it is expanding the pool of languages Google Translate supports by adding 110 new languages to the service. This is the platform’s biggest update yet.
“Google Translate breaks down language barriers to help people connect and better understand the world around them. We’re always applying the latest technologies so more people can access this tool,” Google said.
In 2022, Google Translate added 24 new languages using Zero-Shot Machine Translation, where a machine learning model learns to translate into another language without ever seeing an example.
“We announced the 1,000 Languages Initiative, a commitment to build AI models that will support the 1,000 most spoken languages around the world,” Google said.
“Now, we’re using AI to expand the variety of languages we support. Thanks to our PaLM 2 large language model, we’re rolling out 110 new languages to Google Translate, our largest expansion ever,” Google said.
“These new languages represent more than 614 million speakers, opening up translations for around 8 per cent of the world’s population. Some are major world languages with more than 100 million speakers. Others are spoken by small communities of Indigenous people, and a few have almost no native speakers but active revitalisation efforts. About a quarter of the new languages come from Africa, representing our largest expansion of African languages to date, including Fon, Kikongo, Luo, Ga, Swati, Venda and Wolof,” Google said
The Luo comprise several Nilotic ethnic groups found across Egypt, Sudan, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Northern Uganda, eastern DRC, western Kenya and a part of Tanzania.
The Dholuo language is spoken by about 4.2 million Luo people in Kenya and Tanzania.
The latest update brings to 243 the number of languages Translate currently supports as Google works towards building AI models that will support the 1,000 world’s most spoken languages.