Google's effort to integrate several languages into Gboard takes another step as the developers add 20 others, including Chinese, Korean, and a whole lot more.
The company's ongoing drive to make its platform accessible means that it must consider a wide range of cultures and languages. Among the newly added languages, the aforementioned two appeared to be the most requested by its users. It means that the updated virtual keyboard app now includes GIFs, characters, emojis, and the like that most people regularly use in communicating.
A Growing List Of Improvements
The recent addition of 20 more languages via the update now upgrades Google's database to support over 300 kinds of languages. The numbers indicate that it has enough language information, which recognizes nearly 74 percent of the global population.
The updates do not seem to stop there. The developers revealed that new ones will be added in the following weeks.
Supporting Lesser-Known Languages
Now that the more widely-spoken languages like Korean and Chinese have been added to Gboard, Google also wants the public to know that it also took the time to add native support for Maori and Manx. It will add special characters of these two native languages into the system in the next update.
Google shares an example of its efforts to preserve the cultural history of the world via the story of two brothers. It refers to the creation of the Fulani alphabet with the help of Ibrahima and Abdoulaye Barry.
Historically, the language had been spoken in Africa for hundreds of years but never set its own alphabet. It means that native speakers were unable to communicate via text and were limited to the actual speech.
The two brothers were responsible for the creation of Adlam, the alphabet meant to represent the Fulani language in writing. The developers reportedly worked with the Barry brothers to come up with workable keyboard layout design for the characters and the end product is now what native Fulani speakers use to send messages on their smartphones.
Growing Popularity
A few years ago, most Android platform users often replaced the default virtual keyboard app with other third-party options. Now, with the features and languages supported by Gboard, smartphone owners choose to keep the standard instead.
The lack of users and the developer's decision to shift its resources recently confirmed the death of Swype. It was one of the most popular keyboards available before Google and SwiftKey overtook the app.
Nuance, the program's developer, announced its plans to focus on artificial intelligence services and canceled its support for Swype thereafter.
