Google Chrome's built-in translation feature is incorrectly detecting Santali as Chinese. 🚨 Let’s report this and submit feedback to get it fixed! Here is how you can help

Imagine typing a sentence in your native tongue, only for an AI to completely misidentify it. For many Santali speakers and language advocates, this frustration is a daily reality. When inputting Santali text written in Ol Chiki —into various translation and language detection tools, the system frequently misidentifies it as Chinese.

Why is this happening?

This misidentification boils down maybe due to lack of data. Natural Language Processing (NLP) models rely on massive text datasets to learn the unique patterns, character frequencies, and structures of a language. Because Santali has a smaller digital footprint compared to major global languages, algorithms struggle to recognize it. When an algorithm encounters unfamiliar scripts or word distributions, it makes an educated guess—often incorrectly routing it to a high-resource language like Chinese.

Let’s Give Feedback to Google

Google Translate and its detection algorithms improve through user corrections. By actively reporting these errors, we can force the system to learn.

Here is how you can submit feedback right now:

1. Go to Google Translate or the Google search page where the error occurs.
2. If you try to change the language, by clicking on Page not in Chinese (Simplified), then also it is not going to Change in Santali. 
   
   
   
3. Double check it, if it is absent from the list (may be they have fixed it after the next update.)
   

   

   
   
   
   
4. Look for the small "Send feedback" or "Report a problem" link (usually at the bottom right corner of the translation box), which can be accessed by clicking on thre dots in top right corner and scroll to bottom.
5. Scroll down to Help > then report an Issue or simply use shortcut Alt+Shift+I 
6. In the dialog box that appears, describe the problem clearly (mention the URL of the page, what language it is actually in, and what language Chrome is falsely detecting it as). 
7. Clearly state the issue like: "The text entered is Santali, but the system incorrectly detected it as Chinese. Please update the language detection model for Santali." 
1. I have written a long detailed explanation regarding this :  

        
        Subject / Summary: Incorrect Language Detection: Santali (Ol Chiki) detected as Chinese
Description:
Google Chrome's built-in translation feature is incorrectly detecting the language of the Birmali website as Chinese instead of Santali (written in the Ol Chiki script).
• Website URL: https://birmali.com/
• Actual Language: Santali (sat / Ol Chiki script)
• Detected Language: Chinese
Because of this misidentification, Chrome prompts users to translate the page from Chinese, resulting in inaccurate or broken translations. Please update the language detection model to properly recognize Santali and the Ol Chiki script on this site.
        
        

2. Tips of writing a good feedback:
   1. Be on the page: Open the Birmali website in your active Chrome tab before clicking Help > Report an issue. That way, Chrome automatically attaches the exact URL and diagnostic data. • Include a screenshot: Check the box to include a screenshot so the engineering team can visually see the Ol Chiki script alongside the "Translate from Chinese" popup.
   2. Include a screenshot: Check the box to include a screenshot so the engineering team can visually see the Ol Chiki script alongside the "Translate from Chinese" popup.
8. Click Submit.
9. Now, you would be redireced to a new webpage. 

Current workaround:

1. Did you see a page is detected as Chinese.
   
   
   
2. Click on translate options 
   
   
   
3.  Select page not in Chinese Simplified
   
   
   
4. Select Delected language
   
   
   
5. Now click on Translate 
   
   
   
6. Now the panel would show Detect language.
   
   
   
7. My Santali Blog before translation.
   
   
   
   
8. Now switch to language English or Odia, any language you like, and see how it works well:
   

   
   
   
   
9. Congratulations, you can now try any website: 

Language detection failed on Santali Wikipedia.

I have visited Santali wikipedia page named ᱩᱞ : https://sat.wikipedia.org/wiki/ᱩᱞ which means mango, and chrome detected the wrong language. 

 

Again submitted a feedback by pressing Alt+Shift+I, remember to try the extention then only send the feedback. By applying the cuurent workaround above, I was able to tranlsate the website to English.

 

 

But again it, mercilessly produced wrong tranlsation. My favourite page got wrong translation, instead of trnaslating it to mango it translated the fruit name to vomit. 🥲🥲 Well, GT is still improving ...  

Will it Work for Birmali and Ayoarang

I have visited these Santali websites and applied those settings, now it is translated into Odia language as well.

Birmali Before translation:

After Translation

Ayo Arang

Before

After

If the popup is not working then, follow the below steps:

1. Go to menu, click on Tranlsate 

2. Now the option will pop up

3. Change to English for example 

   

So, by doing simple settings I have successfully changed the settings to transalete Santali language to other languages.

Our language is a core part of our identity. If hundreds of us submit this feedback consistently, Google’s engineering teams will take notice. Let’s clean up the digital space for Santali—share this post and submit your feedback today!

                                                           
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