Occitan and Breton are among a new list of 110 languages that have been added to Google Translate this week, bringing the number of available languages to 243.
The languages were added to the translator app on June 27, in what the tech giant called the “biggest update since the launch of Google Translate”.
"These new languages represent more than 614 million speakers, paving the way for translations for around 8% of the world's population,” said Google in a statement.
“Some are major languages in the world, with over 100 million speakers. Others are spoken by small indigenous communities, and some have almost no native speakers but are undergoing revitalisation efforts,” it said.
Occitan
Occitan is the language of the area of France known as the ‘Languedoc’. The area’s name itself comes from the phrase the ‘langue d’oc’. The language is sometimes referred to as lenga d'òc by its speakers, and also sometimes known as Provençal.
It is a Romance language, with similarities to French, Spanish and Italian. It is spoken in areas including the south of France, Monaco, parts of Italy, and areas of Catalonia in Spain.
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Google Translate translates “Hello, I am speaking Occitan, it’s great to meet you” as: “Bonjorn, parli occitan, es genial de vos rescontrar”.
Occitan is now one of the languages on Google TranslateGoogle Translate / Screenshot
Breton
Breton is spoken in Brittany, and has Celtic origins. It is said to have come over to France (then the ‘Armorica’ peninsula) from Great Britain in the middle ages, and is now considered to be one of the only Celtic languages still spoken on the European mainland.
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Once classified as ‘severely endangered’ by UNESCO, Breton is becoming more popular, and around a third of children in Brittany are now thought to attend bilingual classes that include the language.
Google Translate translates “Hello, I am speaking Breton, it’s great to meet you” as: “Demat, komz a ran brezhoneg, plijus eo ober anaoudegezh ganeoc'h”.
Breton is now one of the languages on Google TranslateGoogle Translate / Screenshot
French languages
It comes just over a year after Google Translate added Basque and Coriscan to its list. It also has Catalan and Luxembourgish.
Google is not just adding new languages; it has said it is still pushing updates to its existing major languages, including working to improve translations in French.
Google Translate first launched in 2006 and claims to have 500 million users daily, who use it for text, documents, and even full websites.
However, some of our readers have told us that they prefer other translators, including DeepL and Reverso, especially for common languages like English and French, as they consider them to be more accurate.
Other languages added…and more to come
Other languages added to Google Translate on June 27 include:
Afar: a language spoken in Djibouti, Eritrea and Ethiopia
Punjabi: Mainly spoken in Pakistan
Cantonese: One of two major types of ‘Chinese’ language
Wolof: The national language of Senegal
Swati: Spoken in Eswatin (formerly Swaziland), and South Africa
Google has said it has no plans to stop at 243 languages, and its ultimate aim is to provide translation for the 1,000 most widely-spoken languages on Earth.
It added artificial intelligence learning capacity to its tool in 2022, which it says will help with its 1,000-language goal.
