The web, a multilingual encyclopedia Part 5

"Dictionnaires electroniques" is a extensive directory of free dictionaries available online, with five main sections: abbreviations and acronyms, monolingual dictionaries, bilingual dictionaries, multilingual dictionaries, and geographical information. The index could also be searched by keywords. It was later transferred on the new website of COTSOES.

According to Marcel Grangier, "we can see multilingualism on the internet as a happy and irreversible inevitability. So we have to laugh at the doomsayers who only complain about the supremacy of English. Such supremacy is not wrong in itself, because it is mainly based on statistics (more PCs per inhabitant, more people speaking English, etc.). The answer is not to 'fight' English, much less whine about it, but to build more sites in other languages. As a translation service, we also recommend that websites be multilingual. (...) The increasing number of languages on the internet is inevitable and can only boost multicultural exchanges. For this to happen in the best possible circ.u.mstances, we still need to develop tools to improve compatibility. Fully coping with accents and other characters is only one example of what can be done."

Maria Victoria Marinetti was a translator from French to Spanish living near Geneva, Switzerland, with a doctorate in engineering from Mexico. She wrote in August 1999: "I have access to a large number of global information, which is very interesting for me. I can also regularly send or receive files back and forth. The internet allows be to receive or send general and technical translations from French into Spanish, and vice versa, and to correct texts in Spanish. In the technical or chemical fields, I offer a technical a.s.sistance, as well as information about exporting high-tech equipment to Mexico or to other Latin American countries."

As for multilingualism, "it is very important to be able to communicate in various languages. I would even say this is mandatory, because the information given on the internet is meant for the whole world, so why wouldn't we get this information in our language or in the language we wish? Worldwide information, but no broad choice for languages, this would be quite a contradiction, wouldn't it?"

In 2000, the internet was multilingual, with half of its users having a mother tongue other than English, but the language barrier was far from gone. If any language was now available on the web, many users were monolingual, and even plurilingual users couldn't read all languages. Bridges were needed between language communities to improve the flow of information in other languages, including by offering better translation software and by offering tools for all languages, and not only the dominant ones.

1999 > THE NEED FOR BILINGUAL INFORMATION ONLINE

[Summary]

With the web spreading worldwide, bilingual information online became mandatory, as stated by Henk Slettenhaar, a professor in communication technologies at Webster University, Geneva, Switzerland, and a trilingual European. Henk spent his childhood in Holland, has taught his courses in English and has lived in neighboring France. He wrote in August 1999: "There are two main categories of websites in my opinion. The first one is the global outreach for business and information. Here the language is definitely English first, with local versions where appropriate.

The second one is local information of all kinds in the most remote places. If the information is meant for people of an ethnic and/or language group, it should be in that language first, with perhaps a summary in English. We have seen lately how important these local websites are -- in Kosovo and Turkey, to mention just the most recent ones. People were able to get information about their relatives through these sites."

With the web spreading worldwide, bilingual information online became mandatory, as stated by Henk Slettenhaar, a professor in communication technologies at Webster University, Geneva, Switzerland, and a trilingual European.

Henk spent his childhood in Holland, has taught his courses in English and has lived in neighboring France. He wrote in December 1998: "I see multilingualism as a very important issue. Local communities that are on the web should princ.i.p.ally use the local language for their information. If they want to present it to the world community as well, it should be in English too. I see a real need for bilingual websites. I am delighted there are so many offerings in the original language now. I much prefer to read the original with difficulty than getting a bad translation."

Henk added in August 1999: "There are two main categories of websites in my opinion. The first one is the global outreach for business and information. Here the language is definitely English first, with local versions where appropriate. The second one is local information of all kinds in the most remote places. If the information is meant for people of an ethnic and/or language group, it should be in that language first, with perhaps a summary in English. We have seen lately how important these local websites are -- in Kosovo and Turkey, to mention just the most recent ones.

People were able to get information about their relatives through these sites."

Geoffrey Kingscott, managing director of Praetorius, a language consultancy in applied languages, wrote in September 1998: "Because the salient characteristics of the web are the multiplicity of site generators and the cheapness of message generation, as the web matures it will in fact promote multilingualism. The fact that the web originated in the USA means that it is still predominantly in English but this is only a temporary phenomenon. If I may explain this further, when we relied on the print and audiovisual (film, television, radio, video, ca.s.settes) media, we had to depend on the information or entertainment we wanted to receive being brought to us by agents (publishers, television and radio stations, ca.s.sette and video producers) who have to subsist in a commercial world or -- as in the case of public service broadcasting -- under severe budgetary restraints. That means that the size of the customer-base is all- important, and determines the degree to which languages other than the ubiquitous English can be accommodated. These constraints disappear with the web. To give only a minor example from our own experience, we publish the print version of Language Today [a magazine for linguists] only in English, the common denominator of our readers. When we use an article which was originally in a language other than English, or report an interview which was conducted in a language other than English, we translate it into English and publish only the English version. This is because the number of pages we can print is constrained, governed by our customer-base (advertisers and subscribers). But for our web edition we also give the original version."

Steven Krauwer, coordinator of ELSNET (European Network of Excellence in Human Language Technologies), explained in September 1998: "As a European citizen I think that multilingualism on the web is absolutely essential, as in the long run I don't think that it is a healthy situation when only those who have a reasonable command of English can fully exploit the benefits of the web. As a researcher (specialized in machine translation) I see multilingualism as a major challenge: how can we ensure that all information on the web is accessible to everybody, irrespective of language differences."

What practical solutions would he suggest? He answered in August 1999: "At the author end: better education of web authors to use combinations of modalities to make communication more effective across language barriers (and not just for cosmetic reasons). At the server end: more translation facilities a la AltaVista (quality not impressive, but always better than nothing). At the browser end: more integrated translation facilities (especially for the smaller languages), and more quick integrated dictionary lookup facilities."

Bruno Didier, webmaster of the Pasteur Inst.i.tute's library, wrote in August 1999: "The internet doesn't belong to any one nation or language. It is a vehicle for culture, and the first vector of culture is language. The more languages there are on the net, the more cultures will be represented there. I don't think we should give in to the kneejerk temptation to translate webpages into a largely universal language. Cultural exchanges will only be real if we are prepared to meet with the other culture in a genuine way.

And this effort involves understanding the other culture's language. This is very idealistic of course. In practice, when I am monitoring, I curse Norwegian or Brazilian websites where there isn't any English."

Alain Bron, a consultant in information systems and a writer, explained in January 1999: "Different languages will still be used for a long time to come and this is healthy for the right to be different. The risk is of course an invasion of one language to the detriment of others, and with it the risk of cultural standardization. I think online services will gradually emerge to get around this problem. First, translators will be able to translate and comment on texts by request, but mainly sites with a large audience will provide different language versions, just as the audiovisual industry does now."

In spring 2000, non-English-speaking users reached 50%. 78% of webpages were still in English in September 2000.

2000 > ONLINE ENCYCLOPEDIAS AND DICTIONARIES

[Summary]

The first reference encyclopedias and dictionaries available online stemmed from print versions. Britannica.com was available in December 1999 as the web version of the 32-volume Encyclopaedia Britannica, first for free and then for a fee. The French-language WebEncyclo from Editions Atlas was available at the same time, for free, as well as the Encyclopaedia Universalis, for a fee. The first major online dictionaries also stemmed from print versions, for example the free Merriam-Webster Online launched in 1996, that included the Webster Dictionary, the Webster Thesaurus, and other tools. The French-language "Dictionnaire Universel Francophone en Ligne " from Hachette was available for free in 1997. The online version of the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary (OED) was available in March 2000 for a fee. Designed directly for the web, the Grand Dictionnaire Terminologique (GDT) was launched in September 2000 in Quebec as the largest free French-English terminology dictionary, and quickly praised by linguists worldwide.

The first reference encyclopedias and dictionaries available online stemmed from print versions.

# Encyclopedias

Britannica.com was launched in December 1999 as the digital equivalent of the 32 volumes of the 15th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. The website was available for free, as a complement to the print and CD-ROM versions for sale, with a selection of articles from 70 magazines, a guide to the best websites, a selection of books, etc., all searchable through a single search engine. In September 2000, the site was among the top 100 websites in the world. In July 2001, the website, not free anymore, could be searched for a monthly or annual fee. In 2009, Britannica.com opened its website to external contributors, with registration required to write and edit articles.

Launched by Editions Atlas in December 1999 and stemming from a print encyclopedia, Webencyclo was the first main French-language online encyclopedia available for free. It was searchable by keyword, topic and media (i.e. maps, links, photos, ill.u.s.trations).

A call for papers invited specialists in a given topic to become external contributors and submit articles in a section called "Webencyclo Contributif". Later on, a free registration was required to use the online encyclopedia.

Launched at the same time, the website of the print French- language Encyclopedia Universalis included 28,000 articles by 4,000 contributors, available for an annual subscription fee, with a number of articles available for free.

# Dictionaries

Merriam-Webster, a well-known publisher of dictionaries, launched in 1996 the website "Merriam-Webster Online: The Language Center"

to give free access to online resources stemming from several print reference works: Webster Dictionary, Webster Thesaurus, Webster's Third (a lexical landmark), Guide to International Business Communications, Vocabulary Builder (with interactive vocabulary quizzes), and the Barnhart Dictionary Companion (hot new words). The website's goal was also to help track down definitions, spellings, p.r.o.nunciations, synonyms, vocabulary exercises, and other key facts about words and language.

The "Dictionnaire Universel Francophone en Ligne" (Universal French-Language Online Dictionary) was the web version of the "Dictionnaire Universel Francophone", published by Hachette in partnership with AUPELF-UREF (which later became AUF: Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie - University Agency of Francophony). The dictionary included not only standard French but also the French-language words and expressions used worldwide.

French was spoken by 500 million people in 50 countries. As a side remark, English and French are the only official and/or cultural languages widely spread on five continents.

The online version (for a subscription fee) of the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary (OED) was launched in March 2000 by Oxford University Press (OUP), followed by a quarterly update with around 1,000 new or revised entries. Two years later, Oxford University Press launched Oxford Reference Online (ORO), a comprehensive encyclopedia designed directly for the web and also available for a subscription fee. Its 60,000 webpages and one million entries could represent the equivalent of 100 print encyclopedias.

# The GDT from Quebec

With 3 million terms related to industry, science and commerce, the GDT (Grand Dictionnaire Terminologique - Main Terminological Dictionary) was the largest French-English online terminology dictionary. The GDT was designed directly for the web by OQLF (Office Quebecois de la Langue Francaise - Quebecois Office of the French Language) and launched in September 2000 as a free service.

The GDT was a technological challenge, and the result of a partnership between OQLF, author of the dictionary, and Semantix, a company specialized in linguistic software. The GDT had 1.3 million individual visits during the first month, with peaks of 60,000 visits per day, which certainly contributed to better translations. The database was then maintained by Convera Canada, with 3.5 million visits per month in February 2003. A revamped version of the GDT went online in March 2003, with the database maintained by OQLF itself, and the addition of Latin as a third language.

2000 > THE WEB PORTAL YOURDICTIONARY.COM

[Summary]

Robert Beard, a language teacher at Bucknell University, in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania (USA), co-founded yourDictionary.com in February 2000 as a follow-up of his first website, A Web of Online Dictionaries (included in the new one), launched in 1995 as a directory of online dictionaries (with 800 links in fall 1998) and other linguistic resources such as thesauri, vocabularies, glossaries, grammars and language textbooks. yourDictionary.com included 1,800 dictionaries in 250 languages in September 2003, and 2,500 dictionaries in 300 languages in April 2007. As a portal for all languages without any exception, the site also offered a section for endangered languages, called the Endangered Language Repository.

Five years before co-founding yourDictionary.com in February 2000, as the portal for all languages without any exception, Robert Beard created the website A Web of Online Dictionaries (WOD) in 1995.

Robert Beard was a language teacher at Bucknell University, in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania (USA). In September 1998, his website provided an index of 800 online dictionaries in 150 languages, as well as sections for multilingual dictionaries, specialized English dictionaries, thesauri and other vocabulary aids, language identifiers and guessers, an index of dictionary indices, the "Web of Online Grammars", and the "Web of Linguistic Fun", i.e.

linguistics for non-specialists.

Robert Beard wrote in September 1998: "There was an initial fear that the web posed a threat to multilingualism on the web, since HTML and other programming languages are based on English and since there are simply more websites in English than any other language. However, my websites indicate that multilingualism is very much alive and the web may, in fact, serve as a vehicle for preserving many endangered languages. I now have links to dictionaries in 150 languages and grammars of 65 languages.

Moreover, the new attention paid by browser developers to the different languages of the world will encourage even more websites in different languages."

Fifteen months later, Robert Beard included his website into a larger project, yourDictionary.com, that he co-founded in early 2000.

He wrote in January 2000: "The new website is an index of 1,200+ dictionaries in more than 200 languages. Besides the WOD, the new website includes a word-of-the-day-feature, word games, a language chat room, the old 'Web of Online Grammars' (now expanded to include additional language resources), the 'Web of Linguistic Fun', multilingual dictionaries; specialized English dictionaries; thesauri and other vocabulary aids; language identifiers and guessers, and other features; dictionary indices.

yourDictionary.com will hopefully be the premiere language portal and the largest language resource site on the web. It is now actively acquiring dictionaries and grammars of all languages with a particular focus on endangered languages. It is overseen by a blue ribbon panel of linguistic experts from all over the world.