Global tech giant Google has added 24 new languages spoken by more than 300 million people to its Google Translate platform. “For years, Google Translate has helped break down language barriers and connect communities all over the world, ” the US-based company said. It added that it now wants to help those whose languages aren’t represented in most technology. The new languages range from Bhojpuri, which is spoken in northern India, Nepal and Fiji, to Dhivehi, with its estimated 300,000 speakers in the Maldives.

The move now brings to 133 the total number of languages available on Google Translate as of May 2022. The company says the new languages also represent a technical milestone, explaining that they use a machine learning model which learns to translate into another language without ever seeing an example. This can be useful for languages where large datasets of human translations, which can be used to train a computer, are not available. But the company admits that the technology isn’t perfect.

So, will the translations be accurate? Some polyglots have noted problems with the languages already available. “For many supported languages, the translation is not great. It will definitely get the idea across but often it will lose much of the subtlety of the language, ” Google Translate research scientist Isaac Caswell told the BBC.

With the new languages, he said, it would be no different. But the people who helped in the research said it was a good place to start. “My impression from other people I have talked to was that it was a very positive thing for them, ” Mr Caswell said. In 2020, Google Translate added five new languages to the platform in what was then its first expansion in the past few years.

Internet: <https://www.bbc.com/>(adapted).

“English is the global language.” — a headline of this kind must have appeared in a thousand newspapers and magazines in recent years. “English Rules” is an actual example, presenting to the world an uncomplicated scenario suggesting the universality of the language’s spread and the likelihood of its continuation. A statement prominently displayed in the body of the associated article, memorable chiefly for its alliterative ingenuity, reinforces the initial impression: “The British Empire may be in full retreat with the handover of Hong Kong. But from Bengal to Belize and Las Vegas to Lahore, the language of the sceptered isle is rapidly becoming the first global lingua franca.” Millennial retrospectives and prognostications continued in the same vein, with several major newspapers and magazines finding in the subject of the English language an apt symbol for the themes of globalization, diversification, progress and identity addressed in their special editions.

A language achieves a genuinely global status when it develops a special role that is recognized in every country. To achieve such a status, a language has to be taken up by other countries around the world. They must decide to give it a special place within their communities, even though they may have few (or no) mother-tongue speakers.

Salman Rushdie comments that “the English language ceased to be the sole possession of the English some time ago”. Indeed, when even the largest English-speaking nation, the USA, turns out to have only about 20 percent of the world’s English speakers, it is plain that no one can now claim sole ownership. This is probably the best way of defining a genuinely global language, in fact: that its usage is not restricted by countries or by governing bodies.

David Crystal. English as a global language. Cambridge University Press,2003. pp.1-2;4;140-141 (adapted).

“English is the global language.” — a headline of this kind must have appeared in a thousand newspapers and magazines in recent years. “English Rules” is an actual example, presenting to the world an uncomplicated scenario suggesting the universality of the language’s spread and the likelihood of its continuation. A statement prominently displayed in the body of the associated article, memorable chiefly for its alliterative ingenuity, reinforces the initial impression: “The British Empire may be in full retreat with the handover of Hong Kong. But from Bengal to Belize and Las Vegas to Lahore, the language of the sceptered isle is rapidly becoming the first global lingua franca.” Millennial retrospectives and prognostications continued in the same vein, with several major newspapers and magazines finding in the subject of the English language an apt symbol for the themes of globalization, diversification, progress and identity addressed in their special editions.

A language achieves a genuinely global status when it develops a special role that is recognized in every country. To achieve such a status, a language has to be taken up by other countries around the world. They must decide to give it a special place within their communities, even though they may have few (or no) mother-tongue speakers.

Salman Rushdie comments that “the English language ceased to be the sole possession of the English some time ago”. Indeed, when even the largest English-speaking nation, the USA, turns out to have only about 20 percent of the world’s English speakers, it is plain that no one can now claim sole ownership. This is probably the best way of defining a genuinely global language, in fact: that its usage is not restricted by countries or by governing bodies.

David Crystal. English as a global language. Cambridge University Press,2003. pp.1-2;4;140-141 (adapted).

“English is the global language.” — a headline of this kind must have appeared in a thousand newspapers and magazines in recent years. “English Rules” is an actual example, presenting to the world an uncomplicated scenario suggesting the universality of the language’s spread and the likelihood of its continuation. A statement prominently displayed in the body of the associated article, memorable chiefly for its alliterative ingenuity, reinforces the initial impression: “The British Empire may be in full retreat with the handover of Hong Kong. But from Bengal to Belize and Las Vegas to Lahore, the language of the sceptered isle is rapidly becoming the first global lingua franca.” Millennial retrospectives and prognostications continued in the same vein, with several major newspapers and magazines finding in the subject of the English language an apt symbol for the themes of globalization, diversification, progress and identity addressed in their special editions.

A language achieves a genuinely global status when it develops a special role that is recognized in every country. To achieve such a status, a language has to be taken up by other countries around the world. They must decide to give it a special place within their communities, even though they may have few (or no) mother-tongue speakers.

Salman Rushdie comments that “the English language ceased to be the sole possession of the English some time ago”. Indeed, when even the largest English-speaking nation, the USA, turns out to have only about 20 percent of the world’s English speakers, it is plain that no one can now claim sole ownership. This is probably the best way of defining a genuinely global language, in fact: that its usage is not restricted by countries or by governing bodies.

David Crystal. English as a global language. Cambridge University Press,2003. pp.1-2;4;140-141 (adapted).

“English is the global language.” — a headline of this kind must have appeared in a thousand newspapers and magazines in recent years. “English Rules” is an actual example, presenting to the world an uncomplicated scenario suggesting the universality of the language’s spread and the likelihood of its continuation. A statement prominently displayed in the body of the associated article, memorable chiefly for its alliterative ingenuity, reinforces the initial impression: “The British Empire may be in full retreat with the handover of Hong Kong. But from Bengal to Belize and Las Vegas to Lahore, the language of the sceptered isle is rapidly becoming the first global lingua franca.” Millennial retrospectives and prognostications continued in the same vein, with several major newspapers and magazines finding in the subject of the English language an apt symbol for the themes of globalization, diversification, progress and identity addressed in their special editions.

A language achieves a genuinely global status when it develops a special role that is recognized in every country. To achieve such a status, a language has to be taken up by other countries around the world. They must decide to give it a special place within their communities, even though they may have few (or no) mother-tongue speakers.

Salman Rushdie comments that “the English language ceased to be the sole possession of the English some time ago”. Indeed, when even the largest English-speaking nation, the USA, turns out to have only about 20 percent of the world’s English speakers, it is plain that no one can now claim sole ownership. This is probably the best way of defining a genuinely global language, in fact: that its usage is not restricted by countries or by governing bodies.

David Crystal. English as a global language. Cambridge University Press,2003. pp.1-2;4;140-141 (adapted).