Multilingualism – Internet priority

In support of translators, the UN has officially declared 30 September as Translation Day. In addition, the EU has highlighted the importance of Multilingualism on the International Day of Cultural Diversity. A new book, Multilingualism and Intercultural Communication caters for the changing sociolinguistic dynamics in SA focusses on a South African perspective of education and languages, emphasising the ‘intellectualisation of indigenous African languages’.Voice powered virtual assistant efforts are on ‘to use machine learning and real-time big data analytics to make virtual assistants understand multiple languages, accents, contexts and nuances to hold more human-like conversations’, according to Saheli Choudhury.