Skip to main content
Translator

Microsoft Translator Blog

Introducing Lower Sorbian

Microsoft Translator now supports 129 languages 

Altmarkt and St. Nikolai Church in Cottbus/Chóśebuz, Brandenburg, Germany, illuminated at night
Altmarkt and St. Nikolai Church in Cottbus/Chóśebuz, Brandenburg, Germany, illuminated at night

Today, we are introducing a new language to the ever-growing list of Translator languages welcome Lower Sorbian! 

Adding Lower Sorbian to Translator was made possible by the Sorbian language community, in particular the Foundation for the Sorbian People, the Sorbian Institute and the Witaj Language Centrewhich donated data to create the new language system, following up on our collaboration to build language support for Upper Sorbian last year. 

Beate Brězan, Head of the WITAJ Language Centre, states that “the addition of Lower Sorbian to Microsoft Translator is a valuable contribution to the preservation of our cultural identity. The ability to translate between Sorbian and more than 100 languages enables our speech community to write in our own language and be understood by others, and vice-versa.” 

Bernd Melcher, Head of the WITAJ Department in Lower Lusatia, highlights the positive impact of the language’s integration into Translator: “Now we can create much-needed textbooks, study materials, and other publications at a larger scale. And our students can use their mobile devices for quick look-up of words and even save the translations – very motivating!” 

Text translation for Lower Sorbian is available now in the Microsoft Translator apps, Office, and Translator for Bing. Using Translator, a Microsoft Azure Cognitive Service, you can add Lower Sorbian text translation to your apps, websites, workflows, and tools; or use Translator’s Document Translation feature to translate entire documents, or volumes of documents, in a variety of different file formats preserving their original formatting. You can also use Translator with Cognitive Services, such as Speech or Vision, to add additional capabilities such as speech and image translation into your apps. 

About the Lower Sorbian language 

Lower Sorbian (dolnoserbšćina) is a West Slavic minority language spoken in eastern Germany in the historical province of Lower Lusatia, today part of Brandenburg. Signs in this region are typically bilingual, and the city of Cottbus (Chóśebuz) has a Lower Sorbian High School where one language of instruction is Lower Sorbian. It is a heavily endangered language with less than 7,000 speakers. 

English  Lower Sorbian 
Good morning  Dobre zajtšo 
My name is…  Mójo mě jo… 
I’m from…  Pśidu z… 

 Learn more about Lower Sorbian on Bing. 

 What you can do with Microsoft Translator 

At home
Translate real-time conversations, menus and street signs, websites, documents, and more using the Microsoft Translator app for iOS and Android.  Learn more 

At work
Globalize your business and customer interactions with customizable text and document translation using Azure Cognitive Services Translator.  Learn more 

In the classroom
Create a more inclusive classroom for both students and parents with live captioning and cross-language understanding.  Learn more