[Summary]
Robert Beard, a language teacher at Bucknell University, in
Lewisburg, Pennsylvania (USA), co-founded yourDictionary.com in
February 2000 as a follow-up of his first website, A Web of Online
Dictionaries (included in the new one), launched in 1995 as a
directory of online dictionaries (with 800 links in fall 1998) and
other linguistic resources such as thesauri, vocabularies,
glossaries, grammars and language textbooks. yourDictionary.com
included 1,800 dictionaries in 250 languages in September 2003,
and 2,500 dictionaries in 300 languages in April 2007. As a portal
for all languages without any exception, the site also offered a
section for endangered languages, called the Endangered Language
Repository.
***
Five years before co-founding yourDictionary.com in February 2000,
as the portal for all languages without any exception, Robert
Beard created the website A Web of Online Dictionaries (WOD) in
1995.
Robert Beard was a language teacher at Bucknell University, in
Lewisburg, Pennsylvania (USA). In September 1998, his website
provided an index of 800 online dictionaries in 150 languages, as
well as sections for multilingual dictionaries, specialized
English dictionaries, thesauri and other vocabulary aids, language
identifiers and guessers, an index of dictionary indices, the “Web
of Online Grammars”, and the “Web of Linguistic Fun”, i.e.
linguistics for non-specialists.
Robert Beard wrote in September 1998: "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."
Fifteen months later, Robert Beard included his website into a
larger project, yourDictionary.com, that he co-founded in early
2000.
He wrote in January 2000: "The new website is an index of 1,200+
dictionaries in more than 200 languages. Besides the WOD, the new
website includes a word-of-the-day-feature, word games, a language
chat room, the old 'Web of Online Grammars' (now expanded to
include additional language resources), the 'Web of Linguistic
Fun', multilingual dictionaries; specialized English dictionaries;
thesauri and other vocabulary aids; language identifiers and
guessers, and other features; dictionary indices.
yourDictionary.com will hopefully be the premiere language portal
and the largest language resource site on the web. It is now
actively acquiring dictionaries and grammars of all languages with
a particular focus on endangered languages. It is overseen by a
blue ribbon panel of linguistic experts from all over the world.
(...)
Indeed, yourDictionary.com has lots of new ideas. We plan to work
with the Endangered Language Fund in the U.S. and Britain to raise
money for the Foundation's work and publish the results on our
site. We will have language chat rooms and bulletin boards. There
will be language games designed to entertain and teach
fundamentals of linguistics. The Linguistic Fun page will become
an online journal for short, interesting, yes, even entertaining,
pieces on language that are based on sound linguistics by experts
from all over the world."
As the portal for all languages without any exception,
yourDictionary.com offered a section for endangered languages
called the Endangered Language Repository.
As explained by Robert Beard: "Languages that are endangered are
primarily languages without writing systems at all (only 1/3 of
the world's 6,000+ languages have writing systems). I still do not
see the web contributing to the loss of language identity and
still suspect it may, in the long run, contribute to strengthening
it. More and more Native Americans, for example, are contacting
linguists, asking them to write grammars of their language and
help them put up dictionaries. For these people, the web is an
affordable boon for cultural expression."
How about the future of the web? "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.”