June 28, 2024 –Google announced today that it is expanding Google Translate to include 110 new languages, encompassing Cantonese, NKo, and Tamazight.
These languages, ranging from Cantonese to Qʼeqchiʼ, are spoken by over 614 million people, accounting for approximately 8% of the global population. Some of these languages are major world languages with over 100 million speakers, while others are used by small indigenous communities. Additionally, there are languages with almost no native speakers but are undergoing revitalization efforts.
Leveraging Google’s advanced PaLM 2 language model, this expansion marks the largest addition of languages to Google Translate in its history. Prior to this, Google announced its 1000 Languages Plan in 2022, aiming to build AI models that support the world’s 1000 most commonly used languages.
Google expressed its commitment to continuing collaboration with professional linguists and native speakers, indicating that as technology progresses and time goes on, Google Translate will extend its support to even more languages.
