Microsoft India has announced that Microsoft Translator will now offer real-time translation in five additional languages. The newly added languages include Gujarati, Marathi, Kannada, Malayalam, and Punjabi. This takes the total number of Indian languages supported to 10, including Bengali, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu. With this, the service will now allow over 90% of Indians to access information and work in their native/preferred languages, making computing language-agnostic and more inclusive in the country.
According to Microsoft, “Language translation is a core part of Microsoft products and services. Users can avail the benefits of AI and Deep Neural Networks-enhanced, real-time translation in all these languages while using Bing and the Microsoft Translator website, as well as the Microsoft Translator App for Android, IOS and Windows. The Microsoft Translator app can recognize and translate languages from text, speech and even photos. Microsoft is also rolling out support for these languages in the Microsoft Office 365 and the Swiftkey keyboard”.
Sundar Srinivasan, General Manager, Microsoft India(R&D) Pvt. Ltd., said, “We’re committed to empower every Indian and every business in India by bringing the power of AI into their daily life. Microsoft celebrates the diversity of languages in India and wants to make the vast Internet even more accessible. We have supported Indian languages in computing for over two decades, and more recently have made significant strides on machine translation across languages. With this release, we are bringing in cutting edge machine learning tech to democratize access to information for everyone in India,”
Microsoft has been working to provide local language computing in Indian languages for over two decades since the launch of Project Bhasha in 1998, allowing users to input localized text easily and quickly using the Indian Language Input tool. Microsoft also announced support for email addresses in multiple Indian languages across most of its email apps and services. Through its global Local Language Program (LLP), Microsoft provides people access to technology in their native language.