Times of India | 1 week ago | 13-05-2022 | 01:49 am
Panaji: Now, 24 more languages have been added to Google Translate, of which Konkani is one, in an overwhelming moment for Konkani speakers the world over. Google, announcing the addition of the 24 languages, said it wanted to break down barriers for languages not represented in most technologies. “For years, Google Translate has helped break down language barriers and connect communities all over the world. And we want to make this possible for even more people — especially those whose languages aren’t represented in most technology. So today we’ve added 24 languages to Translate,” Google said. Konkani is now one of 133 languages around the globe supported by Translate. Assamese, Bhojpuri, Dogri, Manipuri, Maithili and Sanskrit were the other Indian languages to be added along with Konkani to Translate. Of all the 24 languages, apart from Sanskrit, Manipuri and Konkani are the two to be added with the least number of speakers. Google said in their announcement that Konkani is used by about two million people in central India. Through its addition to Google Translate, Konkani has become part of a technological milestone. “These are the first languages we’ve added using zero-shot machine translation, where a machine learning model only sees monolingual text — meaning, it learns to translate into another language without ever seeing an example,” Google said. “While this technology is impressive, it isn’t perfect. And we’ll keep improving these models,” Google said. Konkani speakers will be able to help in the improvement of Konkani translations on Google Translate. Using the Translate Contribute feature, users can support future updates, evaluations and translations in Konkani to improve the result. Konkani was added to the VIII Schedule of the Indian Constitution in 1992, after a series of agitations in Goa in the 1980s which saw the language being made the state’s official one.
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