A screenshot of an English to Iban language translation using Google Translate.

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By DayakDaily Team

KUCHING, June 29: The Iban language is among 110 new languages added to Google Translate’s service, utilising Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Announced on Google’s official blog, The Keyword, on June 27, the expansion includes support for languages such as Banjar, Batak, Minang, Cantonese, and Bahasa Melayu (Jawi).

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Isaac Caswell, a senior software engineer at Google Translate, explained that the significant expansion is powered by Google’s PaLM 2 large language model.

He highlighted that the addition of these 110 languages now enables translation for more than 614 million speakers, covering approximately 8 percent of the global population.

“Some of these languages are major world languages with over 100 million speakers. Others are spoken by small communities of Indigenous people, and a few have almost no native speakers but are the focus of active revitalisation efforts,” Caswell noted.

Google Translate can be accessed via its website or through the Google Translate app available on Android and iOS devices. — DayakDaily