Google has announced that it is adding support for 15 new African languages, including Shona, to its Voice Search, Gboard’s voice-to-text, and Translate.
This project is a collaboration between Google Speech and a research team from the AI Research Center in Accra, Ghana.
The new languages include Chichewa, Hausa, Igbo, Kikuyu, Nigerian Pidgin, Oromo, Rundi, Shona, Somali, Tigrinya, Twi, South Ndebele, Swati, Tswana, and Yoruba.
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With this update, Google now supports 25 African languages, bringing the total number of languages with voice support worldwide to 94.
This addition aims to help about 300 million people across Africa access the internet and communicate in their native languages using voice technology.
In Ethiopia, where Amharic is already available, the addition of Oromo and Tigrinya will help over 85 million people—about 70% of the country’s population—use Google’s voice features in their own languages.
In Kenya, Kikuyu is now available alongside Swahili on Gboard and Voice Search, giving users more language options. Similarly, speakers of Somali in Somalia and Rundi in Burundi can now use Google’s voice services in their languages.
For Southern Africa, Chichewa is added for Malawi, supporting nearly 65% of the Malawian population, while Shona helps around 12 million speakers in Zimbabwe, including Google’s Senior Vice President for Research, Technology & Society, James Manyika.
