11th April 2021
The World Newah Organization (WNO) made history bringing more than190 language-loving people from across the globe to the virtual Zoom webinar that was broadcast live worldwide via WNO’s official Facebook page. This webinar raised awareness and requested help to contribute to the ongoing English to Nepalbhasa (Newah Language) Google translation project. The WNO team along with a Google engineer has been working on this project for over the last 4 months to bring the project to its current status. Member of Parliament of Nepal the Honorable Mr. Rajendra Prasad Shrestha graced the event as the chief guest, and former Member of Parliament and Newah activist Mr. Malla K. Sunder joined as the special guest.
WNO President Mr. Season Shrestha chaired the event and WNO Secretary Mrs. Rashmila Prajapati moderated the entire 2+ hour long event flawlessly to the end. President Shrestha thanked and welcomed all guests to this historical gathering. He said that the listing of Nepalbhasa in Google translation will be a big step towards preserving the language for generations to come. Several linguists predicted that this language is about to be extinct. UNESCO has listed Nepalbhasa as an endangered language. This effort will not only help preserve the language but also benefit all language-loving people in the world who may wish to learn a rich new language.
The coordinator of the WNO Nepalbhasa online dictionary project, Mr. Deepesh Shakya from Ireland explained what GoogleTranslate is and how it learns a new language. With the help of visual slides, he demonstrated where and how to contribute to this project. Another project member, Mr. Sanyukta Shrestha from the UK, shared the team’s experience of various phases throughout the project and provided an update on its current status. He also explained what kind of challenges have been faced and how they were resolved.
Thereafter, Mr. Ujjwal Rajbhandari from the US, an engineer at Google, informed that Google Translate has a billion active users and translating to any language other than English will not require extra work after the translation for English reaches a satisfactory level. He added that in order to improve the quality of translation by Google, we should add correct Nepalbhasa sentences while contributing. He demonstrated on live website how one can start contributing by visiting www.translate.google.com/contribute
WNO Patron Mr. Daya Ratna Shakya from the US emphasised this project’s need to use Devanagari instead of Roman script owing to the linguistic variations and complexity of Nepalbhasa. Chief Guest Mr. Rajendra Prasad Shrestha highlighted the endless opportunities that will be offered by having Nepalbhasa in Google Translate, including that it will eventually enable the use of Nepalbhasa in commercial activities. Special Guest Mr. Malla K. Sundar suggested that the accuracy of Nepalbhasa translation can be effective if a complete list of relevant experts can be maintained and their input fed to the system, and if the Nepal Bhasa Academy will be ready to help contribute to this important project. Likewise, another Special Guest, the chief editor of NepalbhasaTimes Mr. Suresh Kiran Manandhar, promised that this project will be fully supported by all Newah journalists from Nepal.
At the end of the event, Mrs. Rashmila Prajapati facilitated an interactive Q&A session while Mr. Deepesh Shakya collected names of 50 volunteers who came forward to contribute to the final stage of the project. WNO Goodwill Ambassador Mr. Krishna Chakhun from Wales thanked all participants, as well as the moderator, presenters, chief guest, special guests, and of course the Google team and President Shrestha officially concluded the event with an appeal to all community members around the world to contribute to this revolutionary project.