[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. 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." (NEF Interview)
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."