Google Translate adds support for Esperanto

If you frequent websites that contain artificially constructed languages — and really, who doesn’t? — you’ll be pleased to know that Esperanto has been added as the 64th supported language in Google Translate. For the unfamiliar, Esperanto was intended to be a politically neutral language created by LL Zamenhof in the late 1800s. Zamenhof’s goal was to create a language that would be easy to learn, transcended nationality, and, ultimately, foster world peace. However, today it’s estimated that there are only ten thousand to two million Esperanto speakers in the world, with only a few hundred native speakers. So why add support for the obscure language? Google said it was to recognize that the goal of Esperanto and Google Translate are the same: to help people better understand one another. It was also apparently a very easy language to add. The data set for the translation is about 100 times smaller than Spanish or German, thanks to its simplistic nature. So while Esperanto might not have become the language that brought the world together, we’re sure Zamenhof would be happy to know he succeeded at creating a language that computers can easily translate into a more useful language.