A Billion Latins. . . on the Internet?
Pimienta, Daniel
A Billion Latins. . . on the Internet? - 2016.
69
This article relates the history of the Internet in terms of the place of languages in this new universe, and focuses, in particular, on Romance languages (French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, etc.). This history begins with a long period of disinformation in which English was considered to have a stable and definitive presence on approximately 80% of the Web. That statistic has been disproved by more serious studies, which have shown instead that there is a relative but constant decline in the use of English, which now accounts for less than 50% of Internet content. The main Romance languages—which appeared more or less quickly on the Web, with certain individual differences due, in particular, to the digital divide—now have a relative presence on it that exceeds their proportional use in the real world; this testifies to the hard work of Internet users associated with these languages. There will soon be a billion Latins online, and it would be worthwhile for public policy concerned with digital literacy to support the creation of quantities of high-quality content in the Romance languages. The article shows the challenges and difficulties with linguistic cybermetrics, in a context in which the Internet is moving towards advertising as its primary source of funding; this choice is having negative effects, in particular with respect to the vulnerability of personal data related to Internet activities.
A Billion Latins. . . on the Internet? - 2016.
69
This article relates the history of the Internet in terms of the place of languages in this new universe, and focuses, in particular, on Romance languages (French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, etc.). This history begins with a long period of disinformation in which English was considered to have a stable and definitive presence on approximately 80% of the Web. That statistic has been disproved by more serious studies, which have shown instead that there is a relative but constant decline in the use of English, which now accounts for less than 50% of Internet content. The main Romance languages—which appeared more or less quickly on the Web, with certain individual differences due, in particular, to the digital divide—now have a relative presence on it that exceeds their proportional use in the real world; this testifies to the hard work of Internet users associated with these languages. There will soon be a billion Latins online, and it would be worthwhile for public policy concerned with digital literacy to support the creation of quantities of high-quality content in the Romance languages. The article shows the challenges and difficulties with linguistic cybermetrics, in a context in which the Internet is moving towards advertising as its primary source of funding; this choice is having negative effects, in particular with respect to the vulnerability of personal data related to Internet activities.
Réseaux sociaux