MANILA, Philippines – Google announced last Thursday, June 27, it added support for 110 new languages to Google Translate, thanks to some help from its PaLM 2 large language model.

While about a quarter of the 110 languages added were said to come from Africa, Google said it also added support for five Philippine languages: Bikol, Hiligaynon, Kapampangan, Pangasinan, and Waray. Google Translate supported translations for Tagalog (called Filipino on the service), Cebuano, and Ilocano prior to this.

Aside from this, Cantonese was also added as a highly-requested feature, alongside the Shahmukhi variety of Punjabi – the most spoken language in Pakistan – and the Papua New Guinean creole Tok Pisin.

Isaac Caswell, Google’s senior software engineer at Google Translate, said in a blog post that “PaLM 2 was a key piece to the puzzle.” PaLM 2 helped Google Translate to more efficiently learn languages which were closely related to each other.

“As technology advances, and as we continue to partner with expert linguists and native speakers, we’ll support even more language varieties and spelling conventions over time,” Caswell said.

The added language support brings the total number of languages Google can translate for users to 133, with a list of the added supported languages available here.

Users can take advantage of the new supported language translation options by visiting the service or downloading the respective Google Translate app for their device. – Rappler.com