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New Delhi, September 30, 2020: Microsoft India has announced the addition of the Assamese as the latest Indian language in Microsoft Translator. Developed by Azure Cognitive Service Speech, users will now be able to translate text and voice into the Assamese and vice versa. With this addition, Microsoft Translator now supports 12 Indian languages: Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu.

Microsoft has used deep neural networks to develop language models for translating and transliterating complex Indian languages. With their help, even tiny nuances of language can be managed, such as gender (feminine, masculine, neuter), the level of politeness (slang, usual, written, formal), and the type of words (verb, noun, adjective).

Assamese, in addition to being the official language of the state of Assam, is spoken by more than 14 million people in the northeastern states of India. With its inclusion, Microsoft Translator will now allow a large percentage of Indians to access information and work in their native/preferred languages. It can help general users have real-time conversations, read menus and street signs, websites, and documents. Companies can use it to globalize their business and strengthen customer access.

Microsoft is adding the Assamese language to Bing, Office 365, and the Microsoft Translator website, as well as the Microsoft Translator app for Android, iOS, and Windows.

If you want to find out about the Recover Africa project, check out our article on this topic: Recover Africa project: Translation of radio scripts in local languages.

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