#Creator of The Human-Languages Page (who became iLoveLanguages in 2001) and The
Internet Dictionary Project
The Human-Languages Page (created by Tyler Chambers in May 1994) and the
Languages Catalog of the WWW Virtual Library redesigned the site in 2001 to
become iLoveLanguages in 2001. It is now a comprehensive catalog of more than
2.000 language-related Internet resources in more than 100 different languages.
Tyler Chambers' other main language-related project is The Internet Dictionary
Project, initiated in 1995. Its "goal is to create royalty-free translating
dictionaries through the help of the Internet's citizens. This site allows
individuals from all over the world to visit and assist in the translation of
English words into other languages. The resulting lists of English words and
their translated counterparts are then made available through this site to
anyone, with no restrictions on their use." (extract from the website)
*Interview of September 14, 1998
= How did using the Internet change your professional life?
My professional life is currently completely separate from my Internet life.
Professionally, I'm a computer programmer/techie (in Boston, Massachusetts) -- I
find it challenging and it pays the bills. Online, my work has been with making
language information available to more people through a couple of my Web-based
projects. While I'm not multilingual, nor even bilingual, myself, I see an
importance to language and multilingualism that I see in very few other areas.
The Internet has allowed me to reach millions of people and help them find what
they're looking for, something I'm glad to do. It has also made me somewhat of a
celebrity, or at least a familiar name in certain circles -- I just found out
that one of my Web projects had a short mention in Time Magazine's Asia and
International issues. Overall, I think that the Web has been great for language
awareness and cultural issues -- where else can you randomly browse for 20
minutes and run across three or more different languages with information you
might potentially want to know? Communications mediums make the world smaller by
bringing people closer together; I think that the Web is the first (of mail,
telegraph, telephone, radio, TV) to really cross national and cultural borders
for the average person. Israel isn't thousands of miles away anymore, it's a few
clicks away -- our world may now be small enough to fit inside a computer
screen.
= How do you see the growth of a multilingual Web?
Multilingualism on the Web was inevitable even before the medium "took off", so
to speak. 1994 was the year I was really introduced to the Web, which was a
little while after its christening but long before it was mainstream. That was
also the year I began my first multilingual Web project, and there was already a
significant number of language-related resources online. This was back before
Netscape even existed -- Mosaic was almost the only Web browser, and web pages
were little more than hyperlinked text documents. As browsers and users mature,
I don't think there will be any currently spoken language that won't have a
niche on the Web, from Native American languages to Middle Eastern dialects, as
well as a plethora of "dead" languages that will have a chance to find a new
audience with scholars and others alike on-line. To my knowledge, there are very
few language types which are not currently online: browsers have now the
capability to display Roman characters, Asian languages, the Cyrillic alphabet,
Greek, Turkish, and more. Accent Software has a product called "Internet with an
Accent" which claims to be able to display over 30 different language encodings.
If there are currently any barriers to any particular language being on the Web,
they won't last long.
= How do you see the future?
As I've said before, I think that the future of the Internet is even more
multilingualism and cross-cultural exploration and understanding than we've
already seen. But the Internet will only be the medium by which this information
is carried; like the paper on which a book is written, the Internet itself adds
very little to the content of information, but adds tremendously to its value in
its ability to communicate that information. To say that the Internet is
spurring multilingualism is a bit of a misconception, in my opinion -- it is
communication that is spurring multilingualism and cross-cultural exchange, the
Internet is only the latest mode of communication which has made its way down to
the (more-or-less) common person. The Internet has a long way to go before being
ubiquitous around the world, but it, or some related progeny, likely will.
Language will become even more important than it already is when the entire
planet can communicate with everyone else (via the Web, chat, games, e-mail, and
whatever future applications haven't even been invented yet), but I don't know
if this will lead to stronger language ties, or a consolidation of languages
until only a few, or even just one remain. One thing I think is certain is that
the Internet will forever be a record of our diversity, including language
diversity, even if that diversity fades away. And that's one of the things I
love about the Internet -- it's a global model of the saying "it's not really
gone as long as someone remembers it". And people do remember.