Microsoft India on September 30 announced the addition of Assamese as the latest Indian language in Microsoft Translator.

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.

The company is currently the only cloud service provider to support Assamese translation.

Strengthening its position in democratizing the access of the information in the native languages, the company has taken the lead in providing end-to-end communication support for Assamese overcoming the complexities in Machine Learning models used to develop the communication functionalities.

With this latest addition, Microsoft now supports 12 Indian languages viz., Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu.

Assamese –besides being the official language of the state of Assam - is spoken by more than 14 million people across the northeast.

With its inclusion, 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 globalize their business and strengthen customer outreach. Microsoft Translator can be availed across Windows, iOS, Android, and the web.

Sundar Srinivasan - General Manager - AI & Search – Microsoft India, said, “At Microsoft, our mission is to empower every person and every organization to achieve more."

"Microsoft has a responsible approach to AI, a key principle of which is inclusiveness," he added.

"Breaking language barriers is a key step in enabling the inclusion of more people and organizations to utilize technology to achieve more," he further said.

"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," he added.

The service is available on Microsoft Translator app, add-ins, Office365, Bing Translator, and through the Azure Cognitive Services Translator API for businesses and developers.

Users can translate Assamese text, supported by more than 70 languages, for their apps, websites, workflows and tools with Azure Cognitive Services Translator.

Businesses can also avail multi-language support such as translation for e-content, e-commerce product catalogues, product documentation and internal communication, among others.

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