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One of the biggest things that I see with this release is trained vectors for Asian languages - Hindi, Kannada, Telugu, Urdu, etc. This is huge - because most

One of the biggest things that I see with this release is trained vectors for Asian languages - Hindi, Kannada, Telugu, Urdu, etc. This is huge - because most other releases have traditionally been in European languages. It is fairly rare to see Asian languages release. One challenge is that typical linguistic use in Asia mixes the native language with English. For example, people in north india use "Hinglish". It is typically fairly hard to make sense out of this.

kuschku 10y ago
It's already a challenge to find stuff in German, it's annoying just how much research only focuses on English.
- lkozma 10y ago
  According to Ethnologue (2005), by number of speakers: Hindi -- native: 370m | total: 490m Bengali -- native: 196m | total: 215m German -- native: 101m | total: 229m
  - kuschku 10y ago
    I’m sure you know yourself that number of speakers is rarely the metric used for choosing a target market, and more commonly products are launched by the potential revenue to be made (which scales with GDP per capita). Yet, most projects only target the Anglosphere, not even Europe is usually included.
    - danmaz74 10y ago
      Problem is that "Europe" means so many different languages... which is also our biggest remaining obstacle in trying to launch even just web products here (as compared to launching "in the Anglosphere").
gnipgnip 10y ago
To be fair, the Wikipedia sites for these languages barely have any content. Of those that do exist most articles are essentially 2-line blurbs. These languages are essentially dead for all practical purposes.
- lovich 10y ago
  Calling a language with hundreds of millions of speakers "dead" because their wikipedia articles aren't fleshed out seems a bit hyperbolic
  - gnipgnip 10y ago
    I'm not going to waterdown my analysis for some two bit politically correct occidentals and "hyper-nationalist" orientals. A large fraction of Indian children will be illiterate in these "thriving" languages in the coming decades, with "zero" monetary loss. Not living is death, and they haven't been alive for a long time - I can neither get any Govt. services in my mother tongues, nor can get the laws done by the colonial state in Delhi. A zombie is not alive IMO. If Indians wish to parlay their tongues for money, it's upto them. I for one will not deceive myself. We are going to be part of the borg that is the Anglosphere in less than 3-4 generations.
    - lovich 10y ago
      Was the two bit politically correct occidental supposed to be me? Not sure I've ever had the pleasure of being called that before. Regardless, dead has a specific meaning for languages and if people speak it(especially hundreds of millions of people) then it is not dead
      - philh 10y ago
        Someone who says "essentially dead for all practical purposes" is likely not using the specific technical meaning. Do you think gnipgnip believes something that isn't true, or do you think they're just using words differently to how you'd use them?

kuschku 10y ago

It's already a challenge to find stuff in German, it's annoying just how much research only focuses on English.

lkozma 10y ago
According to Ethnologue (2005), by number of speakers: Hindi -- native: 370m | total: 490m Bengali -- native: 196m | total: 215m German -- native: 101m | total: 229m
- kuschku 10y ago
  I’m sure you know yourself that number of speakers is rarely the metric used for choosing a target market, and more commonly products are launched by the potential revenue to be made (which scales with GDP per capita). Yet, most projects only target the Anglosphere, not even Europe is usually included.
  - danmaz74 10y ago
    Problem is that "Europe" means so many different languages... which is also our biggest remaining obstacle in trying to launch even just web products here (as compared to launching "in the Anglosphere").

gnipgnip 10y ago

To be fair, the Wikipedia sites for these languages barely have any content. Of those that do exist most articles are essentially 2-line blurbs. These languages are essentially dead for all practical purposes.

lovich 10y ago
Calling a language with hundreds of millions of speakers "dead" because their wikipedia articles aren't fleshed out seems a bit hyperbolic
- gnipgnip 10y ago
  I'm not going to waterdown my analysis for some two bit politically correct occidentals and "hyper-nationalist" orientals. A large fraction of Indian children will be illiterate in these "thriving" languages in the coming decades, with "zero" monetary loss. Not living is death, and they haven't been alive for a long time - I can neither get any Govt. services in my mother tongues, nor can get the laws done by the colonial state in Delhi. A zombie is not alive IMO. If Indians wish to parlay their tongues for money, it's upto them. I for one will not deceive myself. We are going to be part of the borg that is the Anglosphere in less than 3-4 generations.
  - lovich 10y ago
    Was the two bit politically correct occidental supposed to be me? Not sure I've ever had the pleasure of being called that before. Regardless, dead has a specific meaning for languages and if people speak it(especially hundreds of millions of people) then it is not dead
    - philh 10y ago
      Someone who says "essentially dead for all practical purposes" is likely not using the specific technical meaning. Do you think gnipgnip believes something that isn't true, or do you think they're just using words differently to how you'd use them?