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Brian King, director of the WorldWide Language Institute (WWLI),
brought up the concept of "linguistic democracy" in September 1998:
"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."
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Yoshi Mikami, a computer scientist at Asia Info Network in Fujisawa
(Japan), launched in December 1995 the website "The Languages of the
World by Computers and the Internet", also known as the Logos Home Page
or Kotoba Home Page. (The website was updated until September 2001.)
Yoshi was also the co-author (with Kenji Sekine and Nobutoshi Kohara)
of "The Multilingual Web Guide" (Japanese edition), a print book
published by O'Reilly Japan in August 1997, and translated in 1998 into
English, French and German.
Yoshi Mikami explained in December 1998: "My native tongue is Japanese.
Because I had my graduate education in the U.S. and worked in the
computer business, I became bilingual in Japanese and American English.
I was always interested in languages and different cultures, so I
learned some Russian, French and Chinese along the way. In late 1995, I
created on the web 'The Languages of the World by Computers and the
Internet' and tried to summarize there the brief history, linguistic
and phonetic features, writing system and computer processing aspects
for each of the six major languages of the world, in English and
Japanese. As I gained more experience, I invited my two associates to
help me write a book on viewing, understanding and creating
multilingual webpages, which was published in August 1997 as 'The
Multilingual Web Guide', in a Japanese edition, the world's first book
on such a subject."
Yoshi added in the same email interview: "Thousands of years ago, in
Egypt, China and elsewhere, people were more concerned about
communicating their laws and thoughts not in just one language, but in
several. In our modern world, most nation states have each adopted one
language for their own use. I predict greater use of different
languages and multilingual pages on the internet, not a simple
gravitation to American English, and also more creative use of
multilingual computer translation. 99% of the websites created in Japan
are written in Japanese."
Robert Ware launched his website OneLook Dictionaries in April 1996 as
a "fast finder" in hundreds of online dictionaries. On September 2,
1998, the fast finder could "browse" 2,058,544 words in 425
dictionaries covering various topics: business, computer/internet,
medical, miscellaneous, religion, science, sports, technology, general,
and slang. OneLook Dictionaries was provided as a free service by the
company Study Technologies, in Englewood, Colorado.
Robert Ware explained in September 1998: "On the personal side, I was
almost entirely in contact with people who spoke one language and did
not have much incentive to expand language abilities. Being in contact
with the entire world has a way of changing that. And changing it for
the better! (...) I have been slow to start including non-English
dictionaries (partly because I am monolingual). But you will now find a
few included."
In the same email interview, Robert wrote about a personal experience
showing the internet could promote both a common language and
multilingualism: "In 1994, I was working for a college and trying to
install a software package on a particular type of computer. I located
a person who was working on the same problem and we began exchanging
email. Suddenly, it hit me... the software was written only 30 miles
away but I was getting help from a person half way around the world.
Distance and geography no longer mattered! OK, this is great! But what
is it leading to? I am only able to communicate in English but,
fortunately, the other person could use English as well as German which
was his mother tongue. The internet has removed one barrier (distance)
but with that comes the barrier of language. It seems that the internet
is moving people in two quite different directions at the same time.
The internet (initially based on English) is connecting people all
around the world. This is further promoting a common language for
people to use for communication. But it is also creating contact
between people of different languages and creates a greater interest in
multilingualism. A common language is great but in no way replaces this
need. So the internet promotes both a common language *and*
multilingualism. The good news is that it helps provide solutions. The
increased interest and need is creating incentives for people around
the world to create improved language courses and other assistance, and
the internet is providing fast and inexpensive opportunities to make
them available."
The internet could also be a tool to develop a "cultural identity".
During the Symposium on Multimedia Convergence organized by the
International Labor Office (ILO) in January 1997, Shinji Matsumoto,
general secretary of the Musicians' Union of Japan (MUJ), explained:
"Japan is quite receptive to foreign culture and foreign technology.
(...) Foreign culture is pouring into Japan and, in fact, the domestic
market is being dominated by foreign products. Despite this, when it
comes to preserving and further developing Japanese culture, there has
been insufficient support from the government. (...) With the
development of information networks, the earth is getting smaller and
it is wonderful to be able to make cultural exchanges across vast
distances and to deepen mutual understanding among people. We have to
remember to respect national cultures and social systems."
December 1997 was a turning point for a plurilingual web. AltaVista, a
leading search engine, was the first website to launch a free
translation software called Babel Fish (or AltaVista Translation),
which could translate up to three pages from English into French,
German, Italian, Portuguese or Spanish, and vice versa. Non-English-
speaking users were thrilled. The software was developed by Systran, a
pioneer company specializing in machine translation. Later on, other
translation software was developed by Alis Technologies, Globalink,
Lernout & Hauspie, Softissimo, Wordfast and Trados, with free and/or
paid versions available on the web.
Brian King, director of the WorldWide Language Institute (WWLI),
brought up the concept of "linguistic democracy" in September 1998:
"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."
Geoffrey Kingscott was the managing director of Praetorius, a language
consultancy in applied languages. He wrote in September 1998: "Because
the salient characteristics of the web are the multiplicity of site
generators and the cheapness of message generation, as the web matures
it will in fact promote multilingualism. The fact that the web
originated in the USA means that it is still predominantly in English
but this is only a temporary phenomenon. If I may explain this further,
when we relied on the print and audiovisual (film, television, radio,
video, cassettes) media, we had to depend on the information or
entertainment we wanted to receive being brought to us by agents
(publishers, television and radio stations, cassette and video
producers) who have to subsist in a commercial world or -- as in the
case of public service broadcasting -- under severe budgetary
restraints. That means that the size of the customer-base is all-
important, and determines the degree to which languages other than the
ubiquitous English can be accommodated. These constraints disappear
with the web. To give only a minor example from our own experience, we
publish the print version of Language Today [a magazine for linguists,
published by Praetorius] only in English, the common denominator of our
readers. When we use an article which was originally in a language
other than English, or report an interview which was conducted in a
language other than English, we translate into English and publish only
the English version. This is because the number of pages we can print
is constrained, governed by our customer-base (advertisers and
subscribers). But for our web edition we also give the original
version."
Founder of Euro-Marketing Associates and its virtual branch Global
Reach, Bill Dunlap was championing the assets of e-commerce in Europe
among his fellow compatriots in the U.S. Bill wrote in December 1998:
"There are so few people in the U.S. interested in communicating in
many languages -- most Americans are still under the delusion that the
rest of the world speaks English. However, here in Europe (I'm writing
from France), the countries are small enough so that an international
perspective has been necessary for centuries."
As the internet quickly spread worldwide, more and more people in the
U.S. realized that, although English may stay the main international
language for exchanges of all kinds, people did prefer to read
information in their own language. To reach as large an audience as
possible, companies and organizations needed to offer bilingual,
trilingual, even multilingual websites, while adapting their content to
a given audience. Thus the need of both localization and
internationalization, which became a major trend in the following
years, not only in the U.S. but in many countries, with companies
setting up bilingual websites, in their language and in English, to
reach a wider audience, and get more clients.
Brian King, director of the WorldWide Language Institute (WWLI),
explained in September 1998: "As well as the appropriate technology
being available so that the non-English speaker can go, there is the
impact of 'electronic commerce' as a major force that may make
multilingualism the most natural path for cyberspace. A pull from non-
English-speaking computer users and a push from technology companies
competing for global markets has made localization a fast growing area
in software and hardware development."
In 1998, the European Network in Language and Speech (ELSNET) was a
network of more than 100 European academic and industrial institutions.
ELSNET members intended to build multilingual speech and natural
language systems with coverage of both spoken and written language.
Steven Krauwer, coordinator of ELSNET, explained in September 1998: "As
a European citizen I think that multilingualism on the web is
absolutely essential, as in the long run I don't think that it is a
healthy situation when only those who have a reasonable command of
English can fully exploit the benefits of the web. As a researcher
(specialized in machine translation) I see multilingualism as a major
challenge: how can we ensure that all information on the web is
accessible to everybody, irrespective of language differences."
Steven added in August 1999: "I've become more and more convinced we
should be careful not to address the multilinguality problem in
isolation. I've just returned from a wonderful summer vacation in
France, and even if my knowledge of French is modest (to put it
mildly), it's surprising to see that I still manage to communicate
successfully by combining my poor French with gestures, facial
expressions, visual clues and diagrams. I think the web (as opposed to
old-fashioned text-only email) offers excellent opportunities to
exploit the fact that transmission of information via different
channels (or modalities) can still work, even if the process is only
partially successful for each of the channels in isolation."
What practical solutions would he suggest for a truly multilingual web?
"At the author end: better education of web authors to use combinations
of modalities to make communication more effective across language
barriers (and not just for cosmetic reasons). At the server end: more
translation facilities à la AltaVista (quality not impressive, but
always better than nothing). At the browser end: more integrated
translation facilities (especially for the smaller languages), and more
quick integrated dictionary lookup facilities."
Linguistic pluralism and diversity are everybody's business, as
explained in a petition launched by the European Committee for the
Respect of Cultures and Languages in Europe (ECRCLE) "for a humanist
and multilingual Europe, rich of its cultural diversity": "Linguistic
pluralism and diversity are not obstacles to the free circulation of
men, ideas, goods and services, as would like to suggest some objective
allies, consciously or not, of the dominant language and culture.
Indeed, standardization and hegemony are the obstacles to the free
blossoming of individuals, societies and the information economy, the
main source of tomorrow's jobs. On the contrary, the respect for
languages is the last hope for Europe to get closer to the citizens, an
objective always claimed and almost never put into practice. The Union
must therefore give up privileging the language of one group." The full
text of the petition was available in the eleven official languages of
the European Union. Among other things, the petition asked the revisors
of the Treaty of the European Union to include the respect of national
cultures and languages in the text of the treaty, and the national
governments to "teach the youth at least two, and preferably three
foreign European languages; encourage the national audiovisual and
musical industries; and favour the diffusion of European works."
Henk Slettenhaar is a professor in communication technology at Webster
University in Geneva, Switzerland. Henk is a trilingual European. He is
Dutch, he teaches computer science in English, and he is fluent in
French as a resident in neighboring France. He has regularly insisted
on the need of bilingual websites, in the original language and in
English. He wrote in December 1998: "I see multilingualism as a very
important issue. Local communities which are on the web should use the
local language first and foremost for their information. If they want
to be able to present their information to the world community as well,
their information should be in English as well. I see a real need for
bilingual websites. (...) As far as languages are concerned, I am
delighted that there are so many offerings in the original languages
now. I much prefer to read the original with difficulty than to get a
bad translation."
Henk added in August 1999: "There are two main categories of websites
in my opinion. The first one is the global outreach for business and
information. Here the language is definitely English first, with local
versions where appropriate. The second one is local information of all
kinds in the most remote places. If the information is meant for people
of an ethnic and/or language group, it should be in that language
first, with perhaps a summary in English. We have seen lately how
important these local websites are -- in Kosovo and Turkey, to mention
just the most recent ones. People were able to get information about
their relatives through these sites."
Marcel Grangier was the head of the French Section of the Swiss Federal
Government's Central Linguistic Services, which means he was in charge
of organizing translations into French for the Swiss government. He
wrote in January 1999: "We can see multilingualism on the internet as a
happy and irreversible inevitability. So we have to laugh at the
doomsayers who only complain about the supremacy of English. Such
supremacy is not wrong in itself, because it is mainly based on
statistics (more PCs per inhabitant, more people speaking English,
etc.). The answer is not to 'fight' English, much less whine about it,
but to build more sites in other languages. As a translation service,
we also recommend that websites be multilingual. The increasing number
of languages on the internet is inevitable and can only boost
multicultural exchanges. For this to happen in the best possible
circumstances, we still need to develop tools to improve compatibility.
Fully coping with accents and other characters is only one example of
what can be done."
Alain Bron, a consultant in information systems and a writer, wrote in
January 1999: "Different languages will still be used for a long time
to come and this is healthy for the right to be different. The risk is
of course an invasion of one language to the detriment of others, and
with it the risk of cultural standardization. I think online services
will gradually emerge to get around this problem. First, translators
will be able to translate and comment on texts by request, but mainly
sites with a large audience will provide different language versions,
just as the audiovisual industry does now."
Guy Antoine, founder of Windows on Haiti, a reference website about
Haitian culture, wrote in November 1999: "It is true that for all
intents and purposes English will continue to dominate the web. This is
not so bad in my view, in spite of regional sentiments to the contrary,
because we do need a common language to foster communications between
people the world over. That being said, I do not adopt the doomsday
view that other languages will just roll over in submission. Quite the
contrary. The internet can serve, first of all, as a repository of
useful information on minority languages that might otherwise vanish
without leaving a trace. Beyond that, I believe that it provides an
incentive for people to learn languages associated with the cultures
about which they are attempting to gather information. One soon
realizes that the language of a people is an essential and inextricable
part of its culture. (...)
From this standpoint, I have much less faith in mechanized tools of
language translation, which render words and phrases but do a poor job
of conveying the soul of a people. Who are the Haitian people, for
instance, without "Kreyòl" (Creole for the non-initiated), the language
that has evolved and bound various African tribes transplanted in Haiti
during the slavery period? It is the most palpable exponent of
commonality that defines us as a people. However, it is primarily a
spoken language, not a widely written one. I see the web changing this
situation more so than any traditional means of language dissemination.
In Windows on Haiti, the primary language of the site is English, but
one will equally find a center of lively discussion conducted in
"Kreyòl". In addition, one will find documents related to Haiti in
French, in the old colonial creole, and I am open to publishing others
in Spanish and other languages. I do not offer any sort of translation,
but multilingualism is alive and well at the site, and I predict that
this will increasingly become the norm throughout the web."