Microsoft India said on Wednesday that it has added Assamese as the latest Indian language in Microsoft Translator, increasing the number of Indian languages it supports to 12.
The Azure-based service will now provide real-time translation and transliteration support for the language.
Powered by Azure Cognitive Service Speech, users will also be able to translate speech into Assamese text or to translate Assamese text into another language with speech output.
Assamese — besides being the official language of the state of Assam — is spoken by more than 14 million people across India’s northeastern states.
“Microsoft has a responsible approach to Artificial Intelligence, a key principle of which is inclusiveness. 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 India, 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”.
The other Indian languages that are already supported are — Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu.
With the addition of Assamese, Microsoft Translator will now allow over 90 per cent of Indians to access information and work in their native/preferred languages, making computing language-agnostic and more inclusive in the country.
It can help general users interpret real-time conversations, menus and street signs, websites, and documents.
Companies can leverage it to globalise their business and strengthen customer outreach.
Microsoft Translator can be availed across Windows, iOS, Android, and the web.
The service is available on Microsoft Translator app, add-ins, Office 365, Bing Translator, and through the Azure Cognitive Services Translator API for businesses and developers.
