CEO Mark Zuckerberg made the announcement on Friday as he expressed optimism that the new additions will further encourage the over 1 billion people who speak a language other than English on the social network.
“Facebook is now available in more than 100 languages — with more than one billion people using a language other than English! Today we added Fula, Maltese and Corsican.” “Our community makes this possible. Over the last decade, hundreds of thousands of people around the world have worked together to find the right translations for words and phrases in the Facebook interface. Because the idea of a “Like” in English may mean something different in Arabic or Japanese,” said Zuckerberg.
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Fula, also known as Fulani, is a non-tonal language spoken in Northeastern Nigeria and across about 20 countries in West and Central Africa.
On why the new languages were added to the Facebook library, Zuckerberg said: "For people to share what matters to them and see what matters to the people they care about, they need services available in a language they know. Some of the languages we’ve added don’t have meaningful presence on the internet. Others, like Corsican, are in danger of disappearing altogether, according to UNESCO.”
Mark Zuckerberg was recently in Nigeria on a surprise visit during which he met with software developers and tech entrepreneurs in Lagos. Facebook has also recently launched a stripped down version of its Messenger app, and it is aimed at emerging markets.
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