Google Language tool provides translation between different languages and is widely used all over the world. Few of my Turkish and Egyptian friends frequently use google language tools and they are not satisfied with the translation. Sometimes translations are wrong or does not fully depict the words or even convey the meaning. The most important reason for bad translation is the beauty/semantics in each language which are impossible to translate. This tool translates major languages of the world except one. It is a national language of the country which has very high profile IT industry.

Urdu the national language of Pakistan and the 5th world most widely spoken language [according to SIL (1999)].  George Weber’s wrote an article about the world’s 10 most influential Languages, and Urdu was rated 10th.


Also according to him Urdu is 4th most spoken language in the world with 4.7 percent of world population.

According to wikipedia countries with large numbers of native Urdu speakers are[source]:

Country No of speakers as per year % of total population
India 51,536,111 2001 58.2%
Pakistan 38,765,000 2001 44.2%
United Kingdom 400,000+ 2001 est.
Bangladesh 50,000 0.06%
United Arab Emirates 600,000 0.7%
Saudi Arabia 382,000 0.43%
United States 350,000 0.1%
Afghanistan 320,000 0.8%
Canada 156,415 2006 0.5%
Oman 90,000 2.8%
Bahrain 80,000 11.3%
Mauritius 74,000 5.6%
Qatar 70,000 8%
Germany 50,000
Cuba 10,00
Norway 27,700 2006
France 20,000
Spain (Catalonia) 18,000 2004
Sweden 10,000 2001
World Total 88,459,578

I see these facts and I wonder why google language tool does not have urdu translation facility.

Apart from google there are various other websites which provide Urdu to English and vice versa translation but only to single word [other words they have English<->Urdu dictionary]. I would like to appreciate  http://www.urduword.com/ and http://www.hamariweb.com/ for providing best translation and other language services. Also google labs for providing Roman Urdu tool. But the need for sentence/phrases translations is still there and very few people are working on it.

Hats off to the guys from http://www.paktranslations.com/ who are putting lots of efforts and had initiated a first step towards urdu language tool. Currently they are in beta phase so only English to Urdu translation of sentences and  websites are facilitated by them. They are continuously working and making lots of improvement in their tool. Their tool is not accurate but something is better than nothing.

The facts that Urdu is spoken all around the world, it is under top 5 most spoken language, 10th most  influential language, and have lots of quality literature are clearly shouting Urdu should be included in Google language tool.

I would like to hear your comments what do you think why google has not included urdu in language tool.

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