The Internet and Languages [around the year 2000]

NEF, University of Toronto, 2009
Copyright © 2009 Marie Lebert. All rights reserved.
Introduction Language nations online Towards a linguistic democracy Encoding: from ASCII to Unicode First multilingual projects Online language dictionaries Learning languages online Minority languages on the web Multilingual encyclopedias Localization and internationalization Machine translation Chronology Websites
It is true that the internet transcends the limitations of time, distances and borders, but what about languages? Non-English-speaking internet users reached 50% in July 2000.
# Language Nations
Because the internet has no national boundaries, the organization of users is bounded by other criteria driven by the medium itself. In terms of multilingualism, you have virtual communities, for example, of what I call 'Language Nations'… all those people on the internet wherever they may be, for whom a given language is their native language. Thus, the Spanish Language nation includes not only Spanish and Latin American users, but millions of Hispanic users in the U.S., as well as odd places like Spanish-speaking Morocco. (Randy Hobler, consultant in internet marketing for translation products and services, September 1998)
# Linguistic Democracy
Whereas 'mother-tongue education' was deemed a human right for every child in the world by a UNESCO report in the early 1950s, 'mother- tongue surfing' may very well be the Information Age equivalent. If the internet is to truly become the Global Network that it is promoted as being, then all users, regardless of language background, should have access to it. To keep the internet as the preserve of those who, by historical accident, practical necessity, or political privilege, happen to know English, is unfair to those who don't. (Brian King, director of the WorldWide Language Institute, September 1998)
# A medium for the world
It is very important to be able to communicate in various languages. I would even say this is mandatory, because the information given on the internet is meant for the whole world, so why wouldn't we get this information in our language or in the language we wish? Worldwide information, but no broad choice for languages, this would be quite a contradiction, wouldn't it? (Maria Victoria Marinetti, teacher in Spanish and translator, August 1999)