Newsgroups: sci.lang
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From: "Vladimir Menkov" <vmenkov@cs.indiana.edu>
Subject: Re: Sources on language issues on Internet
Message-ID: <1995Apr1.154033.29494@news.cs.indiana.edu>
Organization: Computer Science, Indiana University
References: <hectorh.3.000F5196@umich.edu> 
Date: Sat, 1 Apr 1995 15:40:27 -0500
Lines: 52

>hectorh@umich.edu (Hector Hernandez) writes:
>...
> I am looking the impact (cultural, social, etc.) of English becoming 
> "the language of the net." 

Why do you think this is happening? English of course is the standard
communication language---over computer networks, inter alia---in
English-speaking countries, and maybe also Netherlands :-). But
English is already a commonly used language there, so it's not
clear what is going to change.

My impression is that in most countries where languages other than
English are spoken, they are commonly used for the messages produced
by software or for software manuals, and of course people use them for
e-mail or Usenet news.  A person who uses the Internet mainly for
reading newsgroups in ge, fj, relcom, tw, or fr hierarchy (rather than
alt or misc), for sending e-mail within his country and for reading
HTML documents on hosts within it may as well be convinced that
German, Japanese, Russian, Chinese, or French, respectively, is "the
language of the net" as you were pleased to put it.

>: I wonder what kind of effects this will bring as the 
>: Internet becomes more ubiquitous. 

Well, presumably people will have more opportunities to be exposed to
foreign languages, the English being (in most contexts) the most
prominent among them. It is not clear though if the opportunity will
be grasped that readily. It looks like in most countries most people
are satisfied with reading locally originating information, as they
perceive it as more important. 

I think another manifestation of this phenomenon is the fact that most
people choose to limit themselves to listening to radio stations
located within a few hundred kilometers from their home, and reading
newspapers published within the same radius.  Everybody can buy a
short-wave radio for a couple hundred bucks (or its equivalent in your
country of residence) and listen to broadcasts from around the globe,
often in foreign languages. Still, even among the readers of this
newsgroup, how many do so?

There are groups of people who are interested in information from
abroad and in foreign languages (either simply for fun of it, or with
a view to some professional activity, or potential immigration or
travel), but I would think that they have some information exchange
channels even without the Internet. (Even though the latter is
certainly beneficial).

	--Vladimir




