Microsoft India has announced the addition of Odia as the latest Indian language in Microsoft Translator. The cloud-based translation service will now offer real-time translation and transliteration for Odia. 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.
With the addition of Odia, Microsoft now provides translation and transliteration support for 11 Indian languages viz., Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu. More than 35 million people in India and across the world speak Odia. With its inclusion, Microsoft Translator service enables more than 90% of Indians to access information and work in their native or preferred languages. This will be of great advantage in making computing language-agnostic and more inclusive across India.
Language translation is AI and Deep Neural Networks enabled and forms a core part of Microsoft products and services. Microsoft Translator enables professionals to enhance their business and customer interactions with text and speech translation powered by Translator and Microsoft Speech service, and Azure Cognitive Services.
Suitable for organizations of all sizes, Microsoft Translator is equipped with Azure-based API that can be used as part of Microsoft offerings to conduct business across India and globally in 11 Indian and 70 global languages. Businesses can avail multi-language support such as translation for e-content, e-commerce product catalogs, product documentation, and internal communication, among others.
Bringing Deep Neural Networks to language translation
Microsoft has been pioneering work on Deep Neural Networks to develop language models for translating complex Indian languages. Deep Neural Networks has the capability of addressing minute language nuances like gender (feminine, masculine, neutral), politeness level (slang, casual, written, formal), and type of word (verb, noun, adjective). Microsoft continuously enhances the translation models keeping in mind tech advancement and usage, and releases newer and improved versions to all its users in a transparent manner. You can learn more about Microsoft Translator here.
Microsoft and Local Language computing: Microsoft has been consistently working to provide local language computing in Indian languages for over two decades since the launch of Project Bhasha in 1998, allowing users to input localized text easily and quickly using the Indian Language Input tool. Microsoft also announced support for email addresses in multiple Indian languages across most of its email apps and services. Through its global Local Language Program (LLP), Microsoft provides people access to technology in their native language.
