The web, a multilingual encyclopedia Part 3

Randy also explained in the same email interview: "Because the internet has no national boundaries, the organization of users is bounded by other criteria driven by the medium itself. In terms of multilingualism, you have virtual communities, for example, of what I call 'Language Nations'... all those people on the internet wherever they may be, for whom a given language is their native language. Thus, the Spanish Language nation includes not only Spanish and Latin American users, but millions of Hispanic users in the U.S., as well as odd places like Spanish-speaking Morocco."

According to Global Reach, a marketing consultancy promoting localization, there were 56 million non-English-speaking users in July 1998, with 22.4% Spanish-speaking users, 12.3% j.a.panese- speaking users, 14% German-speaking users and 10% French-speaking users. 15% of Europe's half a billion population spoke English as a first language, 28% didn't speak English at all, and 32% were using the web in English.

In summer 1999, the number of internet users living outside the U.S. reached 50%.

In summer 2000, the number of internet users having a mother tongue other than English also reached 50%, and went on steadily increasing then. According to statistics regularly published online by Global Reach, they were 52.5% in summer 2001, 57% in December 2001, 59.8% in April 2002, 64.4% in September 2003 (including 34.9% non-English-speaking Europeans and 29.4% Asians), and 64.2% in March 2004 (including 37.9% non-English-speaking Europeans and 33% Asians).

1997 > THE INTERNET, A TOOL FOR MINORITY LANGUAGES

[Summary]

Despite the so-called hegemony of the English language, the internet was also a good tool for minority languages, as stated by Caoimhin o Donnaile, who has taught computing at the Inst.i.tute Sabhal Mr Ostaig, on the Isle of Skye, in Scotland. Caoimhin has maintained the trilingual (Scotish Gaelic, Irish Gaelic, English) college website, as the main site worldwide with information on Scottish Gaelic, with a trilingual list of European minority languages. The internet could be a tool to develop a "cultural ident.i.ty" for any language, while using the English language for this, as stated by Guy Antoine, who founded Windows on Haiti in April 1998 to promote the Haitian culture and language.

Despite the so-called hegemony of the English language, the internet was also a good tool for minority languages, as stated by Caoimhin o Donnaile, who has taught computing at the Inst.i.tute Sabhal Mr Ostaig, on the Isle of Skye, in Scotland.

Caoimhin has maintained the trilingual (Scotish Gaelic, Irish Gaelic, English) college website, as the main site worldwide with information on Scottish Gaelic, with a trilingual list of European minority languages.

Interviewed in August 1998, Caoimhin saw four main points for the growth of a multilingual web: "(a) The internet has contributed and will contribute to the wildfire spread of English as a world language. (b) The internet can greatly help minority languages, but this will not happen by itself. It will only happen if people want to maintain the language as an aim in itself. (c) The web is very useful for delivering language lessons, and there is a big demand for this. (d) The Unicode (ISO 10646) character set standard is very important and will greatly a.s.sist in making the Internet more multilingual."

How about the Gaelic language? Caoimhin wrote in May 2001: "Students do everything by computer, use Gaelic spell-checking, a Gaelic online terminology database. There are more hits on our website. There is more use of sound. Gaelic radio (both Scottish and Irish) is now available continuously worldwide via the internet. A major project has been the translation of the Opera web-browser into Gaelic -- the first software of this size available in Gaelic."

What about endangered languages? "I would emphasize the point that as regards the future of endangered languages, the internet speeds everything up. If people don't care about preserving languages, the internet and accompanying globalization will greatly speed their demise. If people do care about preserving them, the internet will be a tremendous help."

Robert Beard, co-founder of the web portal yourDictionary.com, wrote in January 2000: "While English still dominates the web, the growth of monolingual non-English websites is gaining strength with the various solutions to the font problems. 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 ident.i.ty 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."

The internet could be a tool to develop a "cultural ident.i.ty" for any language, while using the English language for this, as stated by Guy Antoine, who founded Windows on Haiti in April 1998 to promote the Haitian culture and language.

Guy wrote in November 1999: "In Windows on Haiti, the primary language of the site is English, but one will equally find a center of lively discussion conducted in 'Kreyl'. In addition, one will find doc.u.ments related to Haiti in French, in the old colonial Creole, and I am open to publis.h.i.+ng 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. (...)

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 a.s.sociated 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. (...) 'Kreyl' (Creole for the non-initiated) 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."

Guy added in June 2001: "Kreyl is the only national language of Haiti, and one of its two official languages, the other being French. It is hardly a minority language in the Caribbean context, since it is spoken by eight to ten million people. (...) I have taken the promotion of Kreyl as a personal cause, since that language is the strongest of bonds uniting all Haitians. (...) I have created two discussion forums on my website Windows on Haiti, held exclusively in Kreyl. One is for general discussions on just about everything but obviously more focused on Haiti's current socio-political problems. The other is reserved only to debates of writing standards for Kreyl. Those debates have been quite spirited and have met with the partic.i.p.ation of a number of linguistic experts. The uniqueness of these forums is their non- academic nature."

1997 > A EUROPEAN TERMINOLOGY DATABASE

[Summary]

Launched in 1997 by the Translation Service of the European Commission, Eurodicautom was a multilingual terminology database of economic, scientific, technical and legal terms and expressions, with language pairs for the eleven official languages of the European Union (Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish), and Latin. There were 120,000 daily visits on average in 2003. In late 2003, Eurodicautom announced its integration into a larger terminology database in partners.h.i.+p with other inst.i.tutions of the European Union. The new database, called IATE (InterActive Terminology for Europe), would be available in more than 20 languages, because of the enlargement of the European Union planned in 2004. IATE was launched on the intranet of some European inst.i.tutions in spring 2004 and on the internet for free in March 2007.

Eurodicautom was a multilingual terminology database of economic, scientific, technical and legal terms and expressions, with language pairs for the eleven official languages of the European Union, and Latin.

Eurodicautom was initially developed to a.s.sist in-house translators. A free online version was available on the web in 1997 for European Union officials and for language professionals throughout the world.

Eurodicautom covered "a broad spectrum of human knowledge", mainly relating to economy, science, technology and legislation in the European Union (EU), to answer the needs of the 15 member countries in 11 official languages (Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish), plus Latin.

The project of a larger terminology database was studied as early as 1999 to merge the existing databases for a better inter- inst.i.tutional cooperation between the European organizations. The project partners were the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union, the Court of Justice, the European Court of Auditors, the European Economic and Social Committee, the Committee of the Regions, the European Investment Bank, the European Central Bank, and the Translation Centre for the Bodies of the European Union.

Eurodicautom had 12,000 visits a day in late 2003, when it closed to prepare for a larger terminology database that would include the databases of other official European inst.i.tutions. The new database would be available in many more languages, more than 20 languages instead of 12, because of the Enlargement of the European Union planned in 2004 to include new countries from Central and Eastern Europe. The European Union went from 15 country members to 25 country members in May 2004, and 27 country members in January 2007.

IATE (InterActive Terminology for Europe) was launched in March 2007 as an eagerly free service on the web, after been launched in summer 2004 on the intranet of the partic.i.p.ating European inst.i.tutions, with 1.4 million entries in the 23 official languages of the European Union (Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish, Swedish), plus Latin.

The website has been maintained by the Translation Center of the European Union inst.i.tutions in Luxembourg. According to the IATE brochure, also available in the 23 official languages, IATE offered 8,4 million words in 2010, including 540,000 abbreviations and 130.000 expressions.

1997 > BABEL FISH, A FREE TRANSLATION SOFTWARE

[Summary]

In December 1997, the search engine AltaVista launched the first free machine translation software called Babel Fish or AltaVista Translation, which could translate webpages or short texts from English into French, German, Italian, Portuguese or Spanish, and vice versa. The software was developed by Systran (an acronym for "System Translation"), a company specializing in automated language solutions. Babel Fish was a "hit" among the 12 million internet users of the time, who included more and more non- English-speaking users, and greatly contributed to a plurilingual web. Other tools were developed then by Alis Technologies, Globalink, Lernout & Hauspie and Softissimo, with free and/or paid versions available on the web.

In December 1997, the search engine AltaVista launched Babel Fish as the first free machine translation software from English to five other languages.

At the time, the interface of Yahoo! was available in seven languages (English, French, German, j.a.panese, Korean, Norwegian, Swedish), to take into account a growing number of non-English- speaking users. When a search didn't give any result in Yahoo!, it was automatically shunted to AltaVista, and vice versa.

Babel Fish, also called AltaVista Translation, could translate webpages from English into French, German, Italian, Portuguese or Spanish, and vice versa, the original page and the translation being face-to-face on the screen. Translating any short text was also possible with a "copy and paste". The result was far from perfect but helpful, as well as instantaneous and free unlike a high-quality professional translation. Non-English-speaking users were thrilled. Babel Fish greatly contributed to a plurilingual web.

Backed up by plurilingual dictionaries with 12.5 million entries, Babel Fish was developed by Systran (an acronym for "System Translation"), a company specializing in automated language solutions. As explained on Systran's website: "Machine translation software translates one natural language into another natural language. MT takes into account the grammatical structure of each language and uses rules to transfer the grammatical structure of the source language (text to be translated) into the target language (translated text). MT cannot replace a human translator, nor is it intended to."

Machine translation was defined as such on the website of the European a.s.sociation for Machine Translation (EAMT): "Machine translation (MT) is the application of computers to the task of translating texts from one natural language to another. One of the very earliest pursuits in computer science, MT has proved to be an elusive goal, but today a number of systems are available which produce output which, if not perfect, is of sufficient quality to be useful for certain specific applications, usually in the domain of technical doc.u.mentation. In addition, translation software packages which are designed primarily to a.s.sist the human translator in the production of translations are enjoying increasing popularity within professional translation organizations."

Other translation software was developed then by Alis Technologies, Globalink, Lernout & Hauspie and Softissimo, with paid and/or free versions available on the web. As for Babel Fish, it moved to Yahoo!'s website in May 2008.

1997 > THE TOOLS OF THE TRANSLATION COMPANY LOGOS

[Summary]

In December 1997, Logos, a global translation company based in Modena, Italy, decided to put on the web for free the professional tools used by its translators, for the internet community to be able to use them as well. These tools were the Logos Dictionary, a multilingual dictionary with 7.5 billion words (in fall 1998); the Logos Wordtheque, a multilingual library with 328 billion words extracted from translated novels, technical manuals, and other texts; the Logos Linguistic Resources, a database of 553 glossaries; and the Logos Universal Conjugator, a database for verbs in 17 languages. In 2007, the Logos Library (formerly Wordtheque) included 710 billion words, Linguistic Resources (no change of name) included 1,215 glossaries, and the Universal Conjugator (formerly Conjugation of Verbs) included verbs in 36 languages.

In December 1997, Logos, a global translation company, decided to put on the web all the professional tools used by its translators, for the internet community to freely use them as well.

Logos was founded by Rodrigo Vergara in 1979, with headquarters in Modena, Italy. In 1997, Logos had 300 in-house translators and 2,500 free-lance translators worldwide, who processed around 200 texts per day.