Google Translate adds Sorani Kurdish
Google previously only offered its translation service for the Kurmanji dialect of Kurdish.
Google Translate is finally able to translate Sorani Kurdish.
The search engine announced yesterday that it added 24 new languages to its digital translation service, including the Sorani dialect of Kurdish and various African, Indian and Native American languages.
Why it matters: Sorani is spoken by about eight million people in parts of Iraq and Iran, including the autonomous Kurdistan Region in Iraq and the Kurdistan province in Iran. It is the first language for many Kurds in the two countries, but is also spoken by Arabs, Turkmen, Assyrians, Chaldeans and others. The most spoken dialect of Kurdish is Kurmanji, which predominates in Turkey and Syria. Kurmanji is spoken by around 15 million people, and was already available on Google Translate. Sorani is written in the Persian alphabet, whereas Kurmanji uses Latin characters.
Kurdish speakers demanded the inclusion of Sorani in Google Translate for years.
