ML: "How do you see multilingualism on the Web?"
RB: "There was an initial fear that the Web posed a threat to multilingualism on the Web, since HTML and other programming languages are based on English and since there are simply more websites in English than any other language. However, my websites indicate that multilingualism is very much alive and the Web may, in fact, serve as a vehicle for preserving many endangered languages. I now have links to dictionaries in 150 languages and grammars of 65 languages. Moreover, the new attention paid by browser developers to the different languages of the world will encourage even more websites in different languages."
ML: "What did the use of the Internet bring to your professional life?"
RB: "As a language teacher, the Web represents a plethora of new resources produced by the target culture, new tools for delivering lessons (interactive Java and Shockwave exercises) and testing, which are available to students any time they have the time or interest — 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It is also an almost limitless publication outlet for my colleagues and I, not to mention my institution."
ML: "How do you see the future of Internet-related activities as regards languages?"
RB: "Ultimately all course materials, including lecture notes, exercises, moot and credit testing, grading, and interactive exercises far more effective in conveying concepts that we have not even dreamed of yet. The Web will be an encyclopedia of the world by the world for the world. There will be no information or knowledge that anyone needs that will not be available. The major hindrance to international and interpersonal understanding, personal and institutional enhancement, will be removed. It would take a wilder imagination than mine to predict the effect of this development on the nature of humankind."
Initiated by the WorldWide Language Institute, NetGlos (The Multilingual Glossary of Internet Terminology) is currently being compiled from 1995 as a voluntary, collaborative project by a number of translators and other professionals. Versions for the following languages are being prepared: Chinese, Croatian, English, Dutch/Flemish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Maori, Norwegian, Portuguese, and Spanish.
Brian King, director of the WorldWide Language Institute, answered my questions in his e-mail of September 15, 1998.
ML: "How do you see multilingualism on the Web?"
BL: "Although English is still the most important language used on the Web, and the Internet in general, I believe that multilingualism is an inevitable part of the future direction of cyberspace.