= [Quote]
WordReference.com was created in 1999 by Michael Kellogg, who wrote on
his project's website: "I started this site in 1999 in an effort to
provide free online bilingual dictionaries and tools to the world for
free on the internet. The site has grown gradually ever since to
become one of the most-used online dictionaries, and the top online
dictionary for its language pairs of English-Spanish, English-French,
English-Italian, Spanish-French, and Spanish-Portuguese. Today, I am
happy to continue working on improving the dictionaries, its tools and
the language forums. I really do enjoy creating new features to make
the site more and more useful."
= From print versions
The first online language dictionaries stemmed from print versions,
with websites launched in the mid-1990s.
On the website "Merriam-Webster Online: The Language Center", Merriam-
Webster, a main publisher of English-language dictionaries, gave free
access to online resources stemming from its print publications. The
online resources were: Webster Dictionary, Webster Thesaurus, Webster's
Third (a lexical landmark), Guide to International Business
Communications, Vocabulary Builder (with interactive vocabulary
quizzes), and the Barnhart Dictionary Companion (hot new words). The
goal was also to help track down definitions, spellings,
pronunciations, synonyms, vocabulary exercises, and other key facts
about words and language.
The "Dictionnaire Francophone en Ligne" was the web version of the
"Dictionnaire Universel Francophone", published by Hachette, a major
French publisher, and the University Agency for Francophony (AUF:
Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie, also known as AUPELF-UREF).
The dictionary included not only standard French but also the French-
language words and expressions used worldwide. French is the official
language of 49 states, with a number of them in Africa, and is spoken
by 500 million people worldwide. The Agency of French-speaking
Countries (Agence de la Francophonie), which has included the AUF, was
founded in 1970 as an instrument of multilateral cooperation at the
international level. As a side remark, English and French are the only
official and/or cultural languages that are widely spread on five
continents.
= Directories of dictionaries
Directories of dictionaries have been useful too, such as
"Dictionnaires Électroniques" (Electronic Dictionaries), an online
catalog of electronic dictionaries maintained by the French Section of
the Swiss Federal Administration's Central Linguistic Services (SLC-f:
Section Française des Services Linguistiques Centraux). The catalog
included five main sections: abbreviations and acronyms, monolingual
dictionaries, bilingual dictionaries, multilingual dictionaries, and
geographical information. The catalog could also be searched by
keywords.
Marcel Grangier was the head of the French Section of Central
Linguistic Services, which means he was in charge of organizing
translation matters into French for the linguistic services of the
Swiss government. He wrote in January 1999: "Our website was first
conceived as an intranet service for translators in Switzerland, who
often deal with the same kind of material as the Federal government's
translators. Some parts of it are useful to any translators, wherever
they are. The section "Dictionnaires Électroniques" is only one section
of the website. Other sections deal with administration, law, the
French language, and general information. The site also hosts the pages
of the Conference of Translation Services of European States (COTSOES).
(...) To work without the internet is simply impossible now. Apart from
all the tools used (email, the electronic press, services for
translators), the internet is for us a vital and endless source of
information in what I'd call the 'non-structured sector' of the web.
For example, when the answer to a translation problem can't be found on
websites presenting information in an organized way, in most cases
search engines allow us to find the missing link somewhere on the
network."
How about the future? "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 isn't wrong in itself, because it is mainly based on
statistics (more PCs per inhabitant, more people speaking English,
etc.). The answer isn't 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."
The section "Dictionnaires Électroniques" was later transfered on the
website of the Conference of Translation Services of European States
(COTSOES), when COTSOES launched its own website.
= The yourDictionary.com portal
Robert Beard, a language teacher at Bucknell University, in Lewisburg,
Pennsylvania, created the website "A Web of Online Dictionaries" (WOD)
in 1995. In September 1998, the website provided an index of 800 online
dictionaries in 150 languages, as well as specific sections:
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."
A few months later, Robert Beard co-founded a larger project,
yourDictionary.com, that included his previous website and was launched
in February 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 chatrooms 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."
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."
= Terminological databases
Some terminological databases are run by international organizations in
their own field of expertise, with free online versions, for example
ILOTERM maintained by the International Labor Organization (ILO),
TERMITE (ITU Telecommunication Terminology Database) maintained by the
International Telecommunication Union (ITU), WHOTERM (WHO Terminology
Information System) maintained by the World Health Organization (WHO),
and Eurodicautom maintained by the European Commission.
ILOTERM is a quadrilingual (English, French, German, Spanish)
terminology database maintained by the Terminology and Reference Unit
of the Official Documentation Branch (OFFDOC) at the International
Labor Office (ILO) in Geneva, Switzerland. As explained on its website,
ILOTERM's primary purpose is to provide solutions, reflecting current
usage, to terminological problems in the social and labor fields. Terms
are entered in English with their French, Spanish and German
equivalents. The database also includes records for the ILO structure
and programs, official names of international institutions, national
bodies and employers' and workers' organizations, and titles of
international meetings.
TERMITE (which stands for: Telecommunication Terminology Database) is
maintained by the Terminology, References and Computer Aids to
Translation Section of the Conference Department at the International
Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland. It is a
quadrilingual (English, French, Spanish, Russian) terminological
database built on the content of all ITU printed glossaries since 1980,
and updated with recent entries.
WHOTERM (which stands for: WHO Terminology Information System) is
maintained by the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva,
Switzerland. It has included: (a) the WHO General Dictionary Index (in
English, with the French and Spanish equivalents); (b) three glossaries
in English: Health for All, Programme Development and Management, and
Health Promotion; (c) the WHO TermWatch, an awareness service from the
Technical Terminology, reflecting the current WHO usage, but not
necessarily terms officially approved by WHO, and links to health-
related terminology.
Eurodicautom, a multilingual terminological database maintained by the
Translation Service of the European Commission, was initially developed
to assist in-house translators. The free online version was used by
European Union officials and by language professionals throughout the
world. Its contents were available in the eleven official languages of
the European Union (Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German,
Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish), plus Latin. Eurodicautom
covered "a broad spectrum of human knowledge", mainly relating to
economy, science, technology and legislation in the European Union. In
late 2003, the website announced the inclusion of the existing database
into a larger terminological database that would also include databases
from other official European institutions. The new terminological
database would be available in more than 20 languages, because a number
of Eastern European countries were expected to join the European Union
in the near future, thus the need for more languages than the eleven
original ones. The European Union went from 15 country members to 25
country members in May 2004, and 27 country members in January 2007.
The website of IATE (Inter-Active Terminology for Europe) was launched
in March 2007 as an eagerly awaited free service on the web, with 1.4
million entries in 24 languages.
= Wikipedia
Wikipedia was launched in January 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger
(Larry resigned later on). It has quickly grown into the largest
reference website on the internet, financed by donations, with no
advertising. Its multilingual content is free and written
collaboratively by people worldwide, who contribute under a pseudonym.
Its website is a wiki, which means that anyone can edit, correct and
improve information throughout the encyclopedia. The articles stay the
property of their authors, and can be freely used according to the GFDL
(GNU Free Documentation License).
Wikipedia had 1.3 million articles (by 13,000 contributors) in 100
languages in December 2004, 6 million articles in 250 languages in
December 2006, and 7 million articles in 192 languages in May 2007,
including 1.8 million articles in English, 589,000 articles in German,
500,000 articles in French, 260,000 articles in Portuguese, and 236,000
articles in Spanish. In August 2009, Wikipedia was among the top five
websites in the world, with a total of 330 million visitors a month.
Wikipedia is hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, founded in June 2003,
which has run a number of other projects, beginning with Wiktionary
(launched in December 2002) and Wikibooks (launched in June 2003),
followed by Wikiquote, Wikisource (texts from public domain), Wikimedia
Commons (multimedia), Wikispecies (animals and plants), Wikinews,
Wikiversity (textbooks), and Wiki Search (search engine).