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<\/a>Did you know that: –<\/p>\nThis post examines multilingualism on the Internet, some of the anticipated benefits and concerns, as well as the impact of this paradigm on English, which traditionally has been the language of the Internet.<\/em><\/p>\n
<\/a>Did you know that: –<\/p>\n
Language diversity online, which is frequently referred to as multilingualism, is a rapidly growing phenomenon that promises to transform how the Internet is perceived and used. Traditionally, the prevailing view has been that \u201cEnglish is the language of the Internet\u201d<\/em>. However, a key tenet of a number of organisations, such as the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)<\/a>, is that Internet Governance<\/p>\n
This position has been strengthened by the 2009 initiative by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)<\/a> to approve non-Latin characters in web extensions. The system, known as Internationalised Domain Names (IDN)<\/a>, allows domain names to be written in native character sets, such as Chinese, Arabic and Greek.<\/p>\n
Potential impact of multilingualism<\/h3>\n
As countries transition to become Information Societies, an important indicator of the progress made is local content development. Preparing Internet content in a country\u2019s natural language fosters greater social inclusion and cultural protectionism, particularly with regard to unwritten and undocumented languages. According to the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO)<\/a>,<\/p>\n
Some concerns moving forward…<\/h3>\n
Notwithstanding the significant and extensive benefits that could result from increased language diversity online as outlined above, there are a few concerns and observations that ought to be considered. First, a widely held expectation of the Internet has been that essentially, it would eliminate geographic borders. When the historic predominance of English online is considered, this view would have been true \u2013 up to a point. However, there is now a growing fear that through multilingualism, language borders are being established resulting in the creation of silos. It is not yet clear what might be the full consequences of the perceived fragmentation and isolation that is occurring as more languages develop a presence online, but there appears to be a sense of loss for the changes that are occurring.<\/p>\n
Second, for those of us who are native English speakers, especially when it is the only language we speak, we may fail to grasp how much content is online, and more importantly, how much information is available that we lack the capacity to use. Again it is emphasised that only 27% of all Internet users in the world speak English, which means that 73% are non-English speakers (Internet World Stats<\/a>).<\/p>\n
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