Google announces support for voice search in eight more Indian languages (updated)

Update, 08/14/2017, 11:10 ET: In addition to the new Indian languages Google announced voice support for earlier today, the company has also revealed a number of other languages now compatible with Gboard and Voice Search. In a blog post titled “type less, talk more,” Google highlighted 13 more languages now supported as part of its efforts to make the internet more inclusive. These are:

• Amharic (Ethiopia)
  
• Armenian (Armenia)
  
• Azerbaijani (Azerbaijani)
  
• English (Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania)
  
• Georgian (Georgia)
  
• Javanese (Indonesia)
  
• Khmer (Cambodian)
  
• Lao (Laos)
  
• Latvian (Latvia)
  
• Nepali (Nepal)
  
• Sinhala (Sri Lanka)
  
• Sundanese (Indonesia)
• Swahili (Tanzania, Kenya)

Further, Google also said that you could now use voice dictation to “express yourself with emoji” in the US in English. “You can now say something like ‘winky face emoji’ to express yourself,” wrote Google in the post. “Or even ‘Colbert emoji’ to your friends when the occasion calls.” Look out for these features rolling out from today.

Previous coverage: Google has announced the launch of voice search in eight additional Indian languages. Along with Hindi, the new languages include Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu.

Starting today, users will be able to use these languages to dictate queries in Gboard on Android as well as in Search through the Google App. These new languages will also be made available in the Cloud Speech API and will soon be extended to other Google apps and products, including the Translate app. Voice search in these new languages will be available in Google Search on iOS as well.

In order to perform a voice-based search, users will need to set their language in the Voice settings menu in Google app.

According to Google, using voice to dictate a message is up to three times faster than typing. Also, voice input for each of these languages is expected to get better over time, as more and more native speakers use the product.

The new language support will also enhance voice typing on Gboard, helping users to respond to emails on the go and send texts within messaging apps. To enable Voice Typing, users can install Gboard from the Play Store and choose their language from the Settings.