Microsoft Translator Adds Support For Assamese, Now Translates 12 Indian Languages

Microsoft Translator will now provide real-time translation in Assamese. Microsoft announced that users will now be able to translate text and speech into Assamese and vice-versa using its Translator service. The company aims to fill the gap in end-to-end language support for Assamese in India. With this addition, Microsoft Translator now supports 12 Indian languages: Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu.

Microsoft is adding Assamese on Bing, Office, and the Microsoft Translator website, as well as the Microsoft Translator app for Android, iOS and Windows. Powered by Azure Cognitive Service Speech, the service will now provide real-time translation and transliteration support for the language. Microsoft said it aims to democratise the access of information in native languages. As per the company, it is currently the only cloud service to provide Assamese translation.

“Breaking language barriers is a key step in enabling inclusion of more people and organizations to utilize technology to achieve more,” Sundar Srinivasan, general manager (AI & Search), Microsoft, said in a statement. “As part of our mission to remove language barriers, particularly in India, we are happy to announce the release of translation for Assamese to add to the set of 11 Indian languages already supported.”

“It can help general users interpret real-time conversations, menus and street signs, websites, and documents. Companies can leverage it to globalize their business and strengthen customer outreach,” the company added.

The Microsoft Translator app can be downloaded via Google Play, App Store, and through the Microsoft Store. Gadgets 360 was able to confirm the availability the newly supported language on Microsoft Translator on Bing.

Microsoft has been using Deep Neural Networks to develop language models for translating and transliterating complex Indian languages. Through this, it can even manage minute language nuances like gender (feminine, masculine, neutral), politeness level (slang, casual, written, formal), and type of words (verb, noun, adjective).

Is Nord the iPhone SE of the OnePlus world? We discussed this on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.