In an article in Connecting Africa, Editor Paula Gilbert highlighted how Google Translate has added over 110 new languages, including 25+ African languages, marking its largest expansion of African languages to date. These include Fon, Kikongo, Luo, Ga, Wolof, Siswati, Tshivenda, Afar, NKo, and Tamazight, among others. The new languages represent over 614 million speakers, about 8% of the global population.
This expansion is part of Google’s 1,000 Languages Initiative, which uses its PaLM 2 AI model to enhance multilingual translation capabilities. PaLM 2 improves AI-driven translations for diverse languages, including those with few native speakers but active revitalization efforts.
In 2022, Google also added African languages like Bambara, Ewe, Krio, and others. The new additions to Google Translate support 9 out of South Africa’s 12 official languages. Google continues to collaborate with linguists and native speakers to refine translations and include more dialects in the future.
https://www.connectingafrica.com/digital-inclusion/google-translate-adds-25-african-languages
