Google Translate marks the calender as it will henceforth translate 80 languages giving users a wide platform to connect and engage among people who do not share a language.
The 9 new languages launched today have over 200 million native speakers all together from span Africa, Asia and Oceania. Africa has five languages to add to the already existing ones; Somali, Zulu, Nigeria’s; Hausa(35 million native speakers), Igbo (25million), and Yoruba (28 million).
According to Google, the more frequent a language appears on the web, the higher the chances for it to be launched. “A new language sometimes needs a little love from native speakers to get off the ground. You can help launch your language by volunteering to help us gather and translate texts in your language.” Read a blog post.
Google has also put out a form for those interested in getting their language appear on the translate engine.