It’s hard to believe that in July of 2014, Gmail doesn’t already support every language, but Google announced that it now supports thirteen more.

The new languages are: Afrikaans, Armenian, Azerbaijani (Azeri), Chinese (Hong Kong), French (Canada), Galician, Georgian, Khmer, Lao, Mongolian, Nepali, Sinhala, and Zulu.

“Email is a universal way to communicate,” says Ian Hill, Senior Project Manager on Google Localization. “No matter where you are, you can reach anyone else in the world with the press of a button. We take it for granted now, but it’s so much easier to keep in touch with people than it was in the old days of pens, paper, and stamps. But there’s still an important barrier we need to overcome to make email truly universal: language. Gmail is already available in 58 languages, and today we’re bringing that total to 71—covering 94 percent of the world’s Internet population and bringing us closer to our goal of making sure that, no matter what language you write in, you can use it in Gmail.”

“As any native speaker knows, each language has its own nuances, so we worked closely with linguists to make sure the tone and style are just right,” Hill says. “For example, both Hong Kong and Taiwan use traditional Chinese characters. However, you’ll notice that Gmail’s new Chinese (Hong Kong) language uses 收件箱 for “Inbox” instead of 收件匣, which is a word more common in Taiwan.”

All the new languages are rolling out today on the web and feature phones. You can switch languages in the settings.

Image via Wikimedia Commons