Google Bets Big on Indian Languages
The global giant recently announced a number of freshly customized products for the Indian community. Google expressed its interest particularly for products that support Indian languages. The announcement was spearheaded by the growing number of Indian internet users, who prompted for an aim of extending their reach across the country.
In this year’s Google event for India, the company said it is seeking measures to correct the issue. This comes shortly after the online giant noted that the number of Indian speaking users on the web is expected to hit 500 million before the end of 2020. Every year, the country receives around 40 million unique users and not only from metropolitan areas but most surprisingly from the rural areas.
Also revealed was the intention to activate the dormant products that are already in place, with some of them receiving assistance for new languages.
- Google maps: Indians will get voice assistance in both Hindi and English.
- Google feed: Available in Hindi and English and also working to support Telugu, Tamil, Bengali, and Marathi
- Google search. One can turn up news in both languages. Also available is the new English and Hindi dictionary.
- Google assistant: Now supports Marathi, seven Indian languages also coming up soon.
The company noticed that the majority of Indian internet users today are native Indian language speakers. On average, the amount of content online in the Indian language is less than 1 percent of what is available today in English. That has prompted them to begin working with the Indian language publishers to release more relevant content in an Indian language.
To get this project work, Google has launched ‘Navlekha’-A project tool that uses AI to provide any PDF related content in Indian language into an editable text to enable the publishers to create more mobile friendly content. The Indian writers can also begin monetizing their content through the free web hosting from AdSense support. They will also receive support and training and get a branded page domain.
Smartphones are less useful to the people when they work to provide access to relevant content in the people’s primary language. This is why Google find it essential to invest in expanding the number of Indian languages supported by their existing services and apps. You can now stream your favorite news in both Hindi and English sources, and AI will assist you to get the types of stories you prefer watching.
Additionally, the company intends to launch Indian’s payment product Tez to other countries, said Caesar Sengupta, India’s vice president for Next Billion users and general manager of digital payments.
Google promises excellent read-out services to all Indians especially those are not English versed by providing billions of natural sounding webpages online. While all these announcements may appear likely overdue for Indian speakers, the south Asian country has the second highest population of internet users worldwide, it’s only proper that Google serve Indians in their suitable languages and pay attention to relevant content to those users.