Animal species aren’t the only thing going extinct these days; languages are also dying off. And that’s why Microsoft’s committed to ensuring that Translator preserves as many of them as possible. As such, expect more and more additions to come Translator’s way.
Most recently, Galician and Basque are headed to the service. In its announcement of the news, Microsoft included some trivia about the pair of tongues for those not familiar with their origins: “Basque is a language isolate, meaning it is not related to any other modern language. Basque is spoken in northern Spain and southern France in a region that straddles the Pyrenees Mountains. Galician is spoken in northern Portugal and western Spain. It is a Romance language that is closely related to Portuguese. Both languages are co-official languages of Spain.”
Not too long ago, Microsoft also added Zulu and Somali. And in its latest announcement, it touted some of the endangered languages it’s taken part in preserving, which include Māori, Inuktitut, and Yucatec Maya.
The company has a form you can fill out right here if you have a language in need of preservation.
Translator’s journey isn’t restricted to adding and preserving languages. It’s also enhancing translations for what’s already in its roster thanks to new and upgraded AI models Microsoft’s developing to keep Azure Cognitive Services on the cutting edge. What that means is that in both the present and future, you can expect common languages such as English and French to more accurately convert to each other.
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