LHASA, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Thirteen Tibetan-Chinese translation and Tibetan language input software programs were launched Friday in Lhasa, capital of Tibet Autonomous Region, to promote the modernization of Tibetan language processing, the developer said.

China Ethnic Languages Translation Bureau (CELTB) said the programs include a Tibetan to Chinese and Chinese to Tibetan intelligent translation system, an audio-to-text translation program, a Tibetan audio input system and a Tibetan text recognition system.

The development of these software programs could help enhance communication between different ethnic groups in Tibet and are also important for protecting the traditional ethnic culture, said Phurbu Samdrup, an official with the regional government's working committee on Tibetan language.

CELTB is a national-level ethnic languages translation institute. So far, it has developed 40 translation apps and programs for seven ethnic languages including Mongolian, Tibetan, Uygur, Kazakh, Korean, Yi, and Zhuang.