USC ISI researchers develop universal language translation system Daily Trojan

Since its latest edition, the Google Translate application now supports over 100 languages and serves a worldwide community of over 500 million users virtually. But over 6,000 languages are actually spoken, with around 360 languages spoken by a million people or more. To combat this disparity in translation technology, the USC Information Sciences Institute is working on a universal language translation system. Supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the program involves ISI Director of Natural Language Technologies Kevin Knight and a small team of full-time researchers and doctoral students. Knight has worked with ISI in natural language processing for 25 years, and the system is one of many projects he's working on in the field.