Google to add Maya, Nahuatl languages to search engine

Internet giant Google is adding two native Central American languages -- Maya and Nahuatl -- to its universal search service, a company official said Thursday. "Searches in these two pre-Columbian languages and mobile satellite-linked connections to the Internet are part of Google's growth strategy," Google's Mexico marketing technology director Miguel de Alva told . "The two languages are of interest to online searchers because the first (Maya) is spoken by 1.5 million people and the second (Nahuatl), by more than one million." Advertisement: Story continues below He noted that people speaking either of the two languages also speak Spanish. Nahuatl is mostly spoken in southern Mexico and northern Central America, while Maya is spoken across Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, Guatemala and Belize. De Alva said the Google language project was well underway. "We're looking to team up with some academic institutions that will validate the languages, because we want to make sure our customers are getting the real, correct language both in vocabulary and meaning, as well as the word's particular usage." The Google Translate service is fast becoming part of the California-based Internet firm's popular main search engine. As of December, searchers can use the automatic translation program to look for Web pages written in any of 51 languages. The tool displays results Rosetta Stone Spanish Spain from as many as five languages at a time. The Wubi input system -- available on some Chinese computers and backed by the government -- uses character strokes as handwriting does. But the system itself is so difficult to learn that it has failed to gain mass appeal. However, iPhones and other smartphones now offer an option in which users can input characters by drawing them onto the touch screen. And in Japan, kanji kentei -- a character quiz with 12 levels -- has become a widespread craze among schoolchildren, housewives and retirees, according to Yoshiko Nakano, associate professor of Japanese at the University of Hong Kong. Some argue that the perceived decline in character knowledge is, in fact, nothing to worry about. A survey by the southern Chinese news portal Dayang Net, found that 80 percent of respondents had forgotten how to write some characters -- but 43 percent said they used handwritten characters only for signatures and forms. "The idea that China is a country full of people who write beautiful, fluid literature in characters without a second thought is a romantic fantasy," wrote the blogger and translator C. Custer on his Chinageeks blog. "Given the social and financial pressures that exist for most people in China... (and) given that nearly everyone has a cellphone, it really isn?t a problem at all." The explosion of internet and phone technology has itself led to the creation of new words and forms of writing. In 2008 Chinese people were sending 175 billion text messages each quarter, according to the Xinhua state news agency. Still, both Li Hanwei and Zeng Ming have become so concerned about character amnesia that they keep handwritten diaries partly to ensure they don?t forget how to write. If it werent for this, would they actually need to remember how to write characters with a pen? Li is almost stumped, but says she uses one "when I have to sign the back of my new credit card". "That?s almost all," she says.

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