Too Much English on the Interweb
 

http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/stor...005361,00.html

I mean really. What?

I feel the point is pretty clear. Due to the fact that one of the easiest-to-use mediums for information sharing uses relatively few languages, the people that happen not to use any of those can't share or acquire information with such ease. Everyone's loss.

I don't know if it's a good point, but it's a clear point.

I got the point. I just think it's a dumb point.

Hm. Well, there's a point to the article, whereas you have none, other than, "This is dumb." Input would be easier if you explained why you think so.

I won't say serious discussion of this isn't possible, but it doesn't seem to be happening. So it has been Generalized.

I think the issue here is what these people are complaining about is really a composite of a whole bunch of different issues, which in the way they have chosen to address it is sort of meaningless. The internet is in a tiny handful of languages because those are the languages spoken in the tiny handful of nations that have computers. If you want to get people speaking Senegalese on the internets, then give some Senegalese people computers and computer programming training and get them onto the internet.

People aren't being crowded out, just not included in.

So are they saying that the internet is killing language or something?

Or just that people aren't represented?

Maybe if they wanted these people to be represented these "experts" could spend more time raising money to give people electricity and computers than bitching about how they aren't represented...do they even want to be represented on the internet? did anyone ask the people?

DBS

Well, there's the problem that no matter what language you speak, in order to effectively use computers you must know English: if you're programming, you type in English; if you're typing in a url, it's at the very least in roman characters.

This could theoretically change in the future, but it seems as long as English is the basis for all things computers it will naturally come out on top.

This is something I've been wondering about for a while, actually. I don't know that much about Unicode and Shift JIS and character encoding and all that, but it seems to me the current method of interpreting different language fonts is totally broken--a mish-mash of old and new methods and versions, some of which only work half the time, and for anyone with little computer savvy, can be extremely frustrating. I almost feel like there should be a complete overhaul of this leftover system sometime in the future to facillitate communication on the intarwub. Maybe I'll ask metafilter in a few weeks...

Yeah, I think Fifth nailed it. They're focussing on the symptom, not the cause.

Does anyone else think that guy was high when he wrote that article? Seriously, the way he words it doesn't even make sense.

I do see the point said in the article. And as a non english speaker (native one that is) I do say that they are exagerating the thing somehwat. Though in return you aren't giving it as much value as you should.

Both fifth and Locke have a good point, and I would think both are true also.

I'm just agreeing here with a lot of people. But my own opinion right now on the light of the information and experience I have is that when worrying about the survival of languages, the internet isn't propably the first place to focus on. Half of the languages in the world (don't remember how much the percentage actually was, but it was pretty high) were dying allready before the internet.