Microsoft India adds 4 new languages to Translator

NEW DELHI: Microsoft India on Thursday announced the addition of three new Indian languages — Konkani, Maithili, and Sindhi, in Translator along with Sinhala, the official language of Sri Lanka.

Microsoft Translator now supports 16 Indian languages — Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Marathi, Nepali, Odia, Punjabi, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu.

“We are excited to announce that we are broadening our language capabilities to include Maithili, Konkani, Sindhi, and Sinhala. We celebrate and support India’s diversity of language and culture with the most advanced AI to enable India’s growth, by making access to technology pervasive,” Rajiv Kumar, Managing Director, Microsoft India, said in a statement.

The company said that users can translate Konkani, Maithili, Sindhi, and Sinhala text, supported in more than 125 languages, for their apps, websites, workflows, and tools with Azure Cognitive Services Translator.

Over two million people in India speak Konkani, primarily in the states of Goa, Maharashtra, and Karnataka. It is also spoken by a sizable population in other parts of India, such as Kerala and Gujarat.

Maithili is spoken by over 75 million people in India and Nepal.

It is the second most widely spoken language in Bihar and is also spoken in neighbouring states Jharkhand and West Bengal, the company said.

Sindhi is spoken by over 20 million people in India and several other subcontinental countries, whereas Sinhala is spoken by over 16 million people in Sri Lanka, as well as Malaysia and Singapore.

Microsoft Translator can be used across Windows, iOS, Android, and the web.