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Translator Adds Dari and Pashto Text Translation

Image: Famous white pigeons at Shrine of Hazrat Ali, Mazar-I-Sharif, Afghanistan

Today, Microsoft Translator adds Dari and Pashto text translation. You can now translate Dari and Pashto to or from any of the more than 70 languages available in Translator. Dari and Pashto are available now, or will be available soon, in the Microsoft Translator app, Office, and Translator for Bing.

You can also use Translator, an Azure Cognitive Service, to add Dari and Pashto text translation to your own applications, websites, tools, or any solution requiring multi-language support. To add speech-to-text or text-to-speech translation, you can use Azure Cognitive Services Speech.

About the Dari and Pashto Languages

Dari and Pashto are the two official languages of Afghanistan. Both languages are in the Indo-European language family, related to such diverse languages as Hindi, Greek, and English. Although both have been influenced by Arabic, perhaps most notably in using modified Arabic scripts as their writing systems, they are not linguistically related to Arabic.

Dari

Dari is a variety of Persian spoken in Afghanistan, and is the first language of about 12.5 million people in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan. It is also used as a lingua franca throughout Afghanistan. Dari is closely related to Iranian Persian which is spoken in Iran.  Dari and Iranian Persian are often mutually intelligible. Iranian Persian is available in Translator simply as “Persian”.

English Dari Pronunciation
Hello (Greeting) سلام (literally “Peace” in Arabic) salam
My name is… نام من … است nâme man … ast
Pleased to meet you خوشحال شدم از ملاقات شما xooshâl šodom az molâqâte šoma

Pashto

Pashto is spoken by an estimated 45 to 55 million people worldwide. Most Pashto speakers live in the geographical historic region of Pashtunistan, which lies in modern day states of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

English Pashto Pronunciation
Hello سلام (literally “Peace” in Arabic) salam
My name is… زما نوم… دی zema nûm … dey
Pleased to meet you په ليدو مو خوشاله شوم pe lido mo Xooshâla šwum

What you can do with Microsoft Translator

At home

Translate real-time conversations, menus and street signs, websites, documents, and more using the Microsoft Translator app for Windows, iOS, Android, and the web. Learn more

At work

Globalize your business and customer interactions with text and speech translation powered by Translator and Microsoft Speech service, both members of the Azure Cognitive Services family. Learn more

In the classroom

Create a more inclusive classroom for both students and parents with live captioning and cross-language understanding. Learn more

For more information on Microsoft Translator please visit microsoft.com/translator.