200 students and language experts in Denpasar, Bali who are passionate about promoting the Internet in Balinese undertook the translation effort in March and April of 2012. The language-preservation NGO Basa Bali worked together in partnership with Google to make this possible.
“This would be a tremendous progress for Balinese as a part of the universe of languages as we hope it will develop the Balinese language, particularly among young people of today who like to use the internet and other information technologies. This will also create awareness for the latest generation to preserve and develop their mother language as a part of their life in the midst of globalization,” says Windhu Sancaya, head linguist for the Basa Bali NGO.
Head of Google Indonesia Rudy Ramawy said, “Google is happy to help these efforts to preserve Indonesia’s rich cultural and linguistic heritage. We are most grateful to Basa Bali for their dedication in helping us translate the search interface. As a regional language spoken by 4 million people, we hope the introduction of Balinese on Google will help make it easier for more people to go online and find the information they need.”
Balinese will be available on the Google homepage and search results, it is currently not yet available on Google Translate.