[Summary]
Travlang was the first website to offer links to free basic
translation dictionaries, intended for travelers and the general
public. As a first step, Michael C. Martin created in 1994 a
“Foreign Languages for Travelers” section on his university
website when he was a physics student in New York. One year later,
he launched Travlang, a site that quickly became a major portal
for travel and languages, and won a best travel site award in 1997.
Travlang was still maintained in 1998 by Michel C. Martin, now an
researcher in experimental physics at the Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory in California. The section “Translating
Dictionaries” gave access to free basic online dictionaries in a
number of languages (Afrikaans, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Esperanto,
Finnish, French, Frisian, German, Hungarian, Italian, Latin,
Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish). Other sections offered
links to language dictionaries, translation services and language
schools.
***
Travlang was the first website to offer links to free basic
translation dictionaries, intended for travelers and the general
public.
As a first step, Michael C. Martin created in 1994 a “Foreign
Languages for Travelers” section on his university website when he
was a physics student in New York. One year later, he launched
Travlang, a site that quickly became a major portal for travel and
languages, and won a best travel site award in 1997.
Travlang was still maintained in 1998 by Michel C. Martin, now an
researcher in experimental physics at the Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory in California.
The section “Foreign Languages for Travelers” gave links to online
tools to learn 60 languages. The section “Translating
Dictionaries” gave access to free basic online dictionaries in a
number of languages (Afrikaans, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Esperanto,
Finnish, French, Frisian, German, Hungarian, Italian, Latin,
Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish). Other sections offered
links to translation services, language schools and multilingual
bookstores. People could also book their hotel, car or plane
ticket, look up exchange rates and browse an index of 7,000 links
to other language and travel sites.
Michael C. Martin wrote in August 1998: "I think the web is an
ideal place to bring different cultures and people together, and
that includes being multilingual. Our Travlang site is so popular
because of this, and people desire to feel in touch with other
parts of the world. (...) The internet is really a great tool for
communicating with people you wouldn't have the opportunity to
interact with otherwise. I truly enjoy the global collaboration
that has made our Foreign Languages for Travelers pages possible."
What about the future? "I think computerized full-text
translations will become more common, enabling a lot of basic
communications with even more people. This will also help bring
the internet more completely to the non-English speaking world."
Michael C. Martin sold Travlang to GourmetMarket.com in February
1999. GourmetMarket.com sold it to iiGroup in January 2000. By
July 2000, the site was pulling in two million visitors a month.