Awesome New Languages in Machine Translation

This is a list of initiatives for adding new languages to opensource machine translation models (such as NLLB).

Also, some notable projects for increasing the translation quality for an already supported low-resourced language would be highlighted.

The first part of the document lists individual languages in the alphabetic order of their English names.

The second part of the document lists multilingual initiatives.

Any new additions are welcome (in the form of pull requests or issues)!

Single-language projects

Ainu

• Model: https://huggingface.co/TwentyNine/nllb-jpn-ain-v1

Amis

• Model: https://huggingface.co/dylan-leddy/nllb-eng-ami-reverse

Aromanian

• Code and description: https://github.com/lolismek/AroTranslate
• Paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.17728
• Interface: https://arotranslate.com/

Awajun

• Model: https://huggingface.co/hectordiazgomez/nllb-spa-awa-v2

Bambara

• Paper: https://aclanthology.org/2023.loresmt-1.9/

Buryat

• Press: https://burunen.ru/news/society/107048 (in Russian)
• Interface: https://translate-bur.ru/
• Model: https://huggingface.co/SaranaAbidueva/nllb-200-bxr-ru

Circassian (Kabardian)

• Interface: https://www.zedzek.com/en

Chechen

• Paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.12672
• Dataset, sentence encoder, translation model: https://huggingface.co/collections/NM-development

Emakhuwa:

• Paper: https://www2.statmt.org/wmt24/pdf/2024.wmt-1.45.pdf

Erzya

• Interface: https://lango.to/
• Paper (for an old version): https://aclanthology.org/2022.fieldmatters-1.6/
• Newer paper: https://www2.statmt.org/wmt24/pdf/2024.wmt-1.49.pdf

Additionally, see TartuNLP.

Fula

• Model: https://huggingface.co/flutter-painter/nllb-fra-fuf-v2

Ge’ez

• Paper: https://aclanthology.org/2024.loresmt-1.14/

Hill Mari

See TartuNLP

Interslavic

• Model: https://huggingface.co/Salavat/nllb-200-distilled-600M-finetuned-isv_v2
• Demo: https://huggingface.co/spaces/Salavat/Interslavic-Translator-NLLB200
• Presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiNrza83Gvw

Karakalpak

• Interface: https://tahrirchi.uz/uz/translator
• Paper: https://www2.statmt.org/wmt24/pdf/2024.wmt-1.48.pdf

Komi

See TartuNLP

Kpelle

• Paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.18905
• Data: https://huggingface.co/datasets/IARG-UF/English-Kpelle-Corpus

Ladin:

• Paper: https://clic2024.ilc.cnr.it/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/104_main_long.pdf

Lezgian

lez, lezg1247

• Model: https://huggingface.co/leks-forever/nllb-200-distilled-600M
• Code: https://github.com/leks-forever/nllb-tuning
• Demo: https://huggingface.co/spaces/leks-forever/lezghian-nllb-200-distilled-600M
• Description (in Russian): in a Telegram channel

Livonian

See TartuNLP

Livvi Karelian

See TartuNLP

Mansi

• Github: https://github.com/anyasarybaeva/Mansi-Legends

Mari (Meadow)

See TartuNLP

Moksha

See TartuNLP

Ngambay

• Paper: https://aclanthology.org/2023.nlp4tia-1.6.pdf

Qarachay Malqar

• Github: https://github.com/TBSj/Qarachay_Malqar_translator
• Model: https://huggingface.co/TSjB/NLLB-201-600M-QM-V1
• Blog post (rus): https://habr.com/ru/articles/829248/

Tamazight

• Model: https://huggingface.co/Tamazight-NLP/NLLB-200-600M-Tamazight-All-Data-3-epoch
• Demo: https://huggingface.co/spaces/Tamazight-NLP/Finetuned-NLLB
• Paper: https://www2.statmt.org/wmt25/pdf/2025.wmt-1.82.pdf

Tyvan

• Blog: https://cointegrated.medium.com/a37fc706b865
• Interface: https://tyvan.ru/
• Paper: https://www2.statmt.org/wmt24/pdf/2024.wmt-1.46.pdf

Udmurt

See TartuNLP

Wu Chinese

• Paper: https://www2.statmt.org/wmt24/pdf/2024.wmt-1.47.pdf

Zarma

• Paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.05888

Multilingual projects

Finno-Ugric languages (TartuNLP)

Multiple Finno-Ugric languages (including Komi, Udmurt, Hill and Meadow Mari, Erzya, Livonian, Mansi, Moksha and Livvi Karelian)

• Paper (an early one): https://aclanthology.org/2022.wmt-1.33/
• Paper: https://aclanthology.org/2023.nodalida-1.77.pdf
• Interface: https://translate.ut.ee/
• Model: https://huggingface.co/tartuNLP/smugri3_14-finno-ugric-nmt

Indigenous languages of the Americas (AmericasNLP Shared Tasks)

Indigenous languages of the Americas (including Ashaninka, Aymara, Bribri, Chatino, Guarani, Hñähñu, Nahuatl, Quechua, Raramuri, Shipibo-Konibo, and Wixarika from the AmericasNLP Mt shared task, and Wayuunaiki, Arhuaco, Inga, and Nasa – additionally)

• Paper: https://aclanthology.org/2023.americasnlp-1.19.pdf
• Paper: https://aclanthology.org/2024.americasnlp-1.22.pdf
• Paper: https://aclanthology.org/2024.americasnlp-1.2.pdf

Multiple Iberian languages

Aragonese, Aranese, Asturian, Valencian

• Paper: https://www2.statmt.org/wmt24/pdf/2024.wmt-1.94.pdf
• Paper: https://www2.statmt.org/wmt24/pdf/2024.wmt-1.41.pdf

Multiple Ethiopian languages

Namely: Afar, Afaan Oromo, Awngi, Amharic, Basketo, Dawuro, Dashenech, Geez, Gamo, Gofa, Gurage, Hadiya, Kafa, Korate, Majang, Male, Murule, Nuer, Shakicho, Sidama, Somali, Tigrinya, Wolaytta.

• Paper: https://aclanthology.org/2024.rail-1.12/

Hundreds of diverse languages (Apertium)

Apertium is a system of rule-based machine translation.

Currently, it has linguistic tools (such as dictionaries and morphological parsers) for an insane number of languages, but only few of them (51 language pairs) have been developed to a state considered stable enough for publicly releasing a translation service.

• Code: https://github.com/apertium
• Interface (with only a subset of the most stable language pairs): https://www.apertium.org/