Google goes Frisian with up to 500,000 words and phrases

DutchNews, September 27, 2015

Google Translate will soon have as many as half a million Frisian words and expressions in its database, Omroep Friesland reports on Saturday. 

Hundreds of Frisians participated in the Friesian Google Translate week which ran until September 26 and got translating from English into Frisian for the new translation service. 

‘It’s quite a remarkable response given that so few people speak Frisian, and in such a short time as well’, the Omroep quotes Google worker Marc Ynema as saying. 

The translations will be checked in the next few days and made available online as soon as possible, the broadcaster said. 

Frisian is an official language in the Netherlands and is the native tongue of around half the 350,000 people who live in the province of Friesland.