nyanggakeun mugya aya mangfaatna. tos waktosna ngaleubeutkeun web sunda meureun :))
dh
---
'Too much English on Web 'risks crowding out other cultures'
AFP > by John HadoulisWed Nov 1, 11:08 AM ET
Experts at a UN forum on Internet governance warned that the
predominant use of English on the worldwide web needs to be checked
before it crowds out other languages.
They fear forms of cultural knowledge accumulated over centuries of
human progress could be be lost for ever.
"Some 90 percent of 6,000 languages (at use today) are not represented
on the Internet," said Yoshinori Imai of NHK, Japan's Broadcasting
Corporation.
"These people could be left out in the desert of no information and no
knowledge," he said.
In countries such as Colombia and Senegal, oral tradition and cultural
heritage that could be used for research and education purposes may
never reach the broader world, sociologists and linguists told the
four-day forum, held in the southern Athens suburb of Vouliagmeni
until November 2.
"A large part of the population are voiceless because they cannot
share the information," said Adama Samassekou, president of the
African Academy of Languages in Mali.
"Every time a language dies, a vision of the world disappears," he said.
"Even in the research field there's a linguistic bias, English is far
and away the dominant language," added Divina Frau-Meigs, a professor
of media sociology at the University of Sorbonne in Paris.
When it comes to creating sites with non-English content, users in
many countries face difficulty in that HTML -- computer language
through which web pages are created -- largely uses English words and
abbreviations, said Bernard Benhamou, senior lecturer on the
information society at the Political Sciences Institute in Paris.
"For (Westerners) this does not mean much, but for a user who doesn't
speak English it's a hell of a task," he told AFP.
In one case in Cambodia, the local Internet community developed its
own software in Khmer after being turned down by a software developer,
said Markus Kummer, chairman of the United Nations working group on
Internet governance.
For the time being, initiatives to diversify language use on the
Internet are undertaken by various countries at local level.
But the United Nations and other organisations such as ICANN, the
non-profit organisation that manages the Internet's technical root,
are mindful that fragmentation could occur if this issue is not
adequately addressed.
If that were ever to happen, experts say that typing an Internet
address would produce different links depending on the user's
geographical location, while email would get hopelessly lost en route.
"The risk of fragmentation today is low, but if were to occur it would
be really bad," said Patrick Faelstroem, a senior consulting engineer
at Cisco Systems and a member of the Swedish government's IT policy
and strategy group.
"It would mean that if you send me an email from Greece, I may not be
able to even reply to you from Sweden," he added.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved.
dh
---
'Too much English on Web 'risks crowding out other cultures'
AFP > by John HadoulisWed Nov 1, 11:08 AM ET
Experts at a UN forum on Internet governance warned that the
predominant use of English on the worldwide web needs to be checked
before it crowds out other languages.
They fear forms of cultural knowledge accumulated over centuries of
human progress could be be lost for ever.
"Some 90 percent of 6,000 languages (at use today) are not represented
on the Internet," said Yoshinori Imai of NHK, Japan's Broadcasting
Corporation.
"These people could be left out in the desert of no information and no
knowledge," he said.
In countries such as Colombia and Senegal, oral tradition and cultural
heritage that could be used for research and education purposes may
never reach the broader world, sociologists and linguists told the
four-day forum, held in the southern Athens suburb of Vouliagmeni
until November 2.
"A large part of the population are voiceless because they cannot
share the information," said Adama Samassekou, president of the
African Academy of Languages in Mali.
"Every time a language dies, a vision of the world disappears," he said.
"Even in the research field there's a linguistic bias, English is far
and away the dominant language," added Divina Frau-Meigs, a professor
of media sociology at the University of Sorbonne in Paris.
When it comes to creating sites with non-English content, users in
many countries face difficulty in that HTML -- computer language
through which web pages are created -- largely uses English words and
abbreviations, said Bernard Benhamou, senior lecturer on the
information society at the Political Sciences Institute in Paris.
"For (Westerners) this does not mean much, but for a user who doesn't
speak English it's a hell of a task," he told AFP.
In one case in Cambodia, the local Internet community developed its
own software in Khmer after being turned down by a software developer,
said Markus Kummer, chairman of the United Nations working group on
Internet governance.
For the time being, initiatives to diversify language use on the
Internet are undertaken by various countries at local level.
But the United Nations and other organisations such as ICANN, the
non-profit organisation that manages the Internet's technical root,
are mindful that fragmentation could occur if this issue is not
adequately addressed.
If that were ever to happen, experts say that typing an Internet
address would produce different links depending on the user's
geographical location, while email would get hopelessly lost en route.
"The risk of fragmentation today is low, but if were to occur it would
be really bad," said Patrick Faelstroem, a senior consulting engineer
at Cisco Systems and a member of the Swedish government's IT policy
and strategy group.
"It would mean that if you send me an email from Greece, I may not be
able to even reply to you from Sweden," he added.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved.
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