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Gmail adds support for 13 new languages, now covers 94% of worldwide internet population

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Google announced today that it’s adding support for a total of thirteen new languages in Gmail. That’s up from the 58 it had previously and brings the total up to 71 languages. As Google puts it, with today’s update Gmail now has coverage for 94 percent of the worldwide Internet population.

Gmail is a universal way to communicate. No matter where you are, you can reach anyone else in the world with the press of a button. We take it for granted now, but it’s so much easier to keep in touch with people than it was in the old days of pens, paper, and stamps. But there’s still an important barrier we need to overcome to make email truly universal: language.

The new languages include:

Afrikaans, Armenian, Azerbaijani (Azeri), Chinese (Hong Kong), French (Canada), Galician, Georgian, Khmer, Lao, Mongolian, Nepali, Sinhala, and Zulu.

Google notes that it worked closely to make sure that the support for the new languages is as smooth and natural to native speakers. Google gives an example of some of the nuances between variations of languages for its new Chinese (Hong Kong) language support: “For example, both Hong Kong and Taiwan use traditional Chinese characters. However, you’ll notice that Gmail’s new Chinese (Hong Kong) language uses 收件箱 for “Inbox” instead of 收件匣, which is a word more common in Taiwan.”

Google says the 13 new languages are rolling out today on both Gmail on the web feature phone browsers.

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Avatar for Jordan Kahn Jordan Kahn

Jordan writes about all things Apple as Senior Editor of 9to5Mac, & contributes to 9to5Google, 9to5Toys, & Electrek.co. He also co-authors 9to5Mac’s weekly Logic Pros series and makes music as one half of Toronto-based Makamachine.