UNESCO: linguistic diversity online is uncertain

An Ad

Integrate business news on your website free of charge and offer your visitors up-to-date content! Click here for more information.

In a new publication entitled "Measuring Linguistic Diversity on the Internet," UNESCO points out that "hundreds of local languages may be sidelined in the drive to bridge the digital divide because of technological oversight and political inertia."

According to the new publication that was prepared under the auspices of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, statistical information available on the linguistic diversity of Internet users are scarce and hardly accurate.

Figures currently available are usually "an estimate based upon other estimates produced largely by a marketing company," the UNESCO website informs. No actual survey has so far been conducted nor are methods available to accumulate such data.

Given the complexity involved, according to UNESCO, no single organization is capable of developing a standard methodology which would accurately reflect Internet users around the world. So the UIS is proposing the creation of a network of regional initiatives, whose studies could then be combined in an overall global perspective.

The new UIS publication presents key findings of these research initiatives. While debating the predominance of English, the authors all stress that computers were originally designed with English in mind and therefore have inherent technological biases.

Apart from the lack in accuracy of available data, statistics of linguistic diversity are mainly compiled from the location on internet users and official languages in their countries. While this may not deliver accurate data, it nonetheless indicates a growing diversity of languages in general and a proportional decline of the main net-language English.

According to online statistics compiled from 2004-data, English remains to be the major language of the web, although its predominance is diminishing. The figures suggests that just above one third of all internet users speak English. Chinese speakers are ranked second, Japanese third followed by Spanish and German.

Sources: UNESCO, Web Stats: English losing ground on the net, Chinese on the rise