The web, a multilingual encyclopedia Part 4

The linguistic tools available online were the Logos Dictionary, a multilingual dictionary with 7.5 billion words (in fall 1998); the Logos Wordtheque, a multilingual library with 328 billion words extracted from translated novels, technical manuals, and other texts, that could be searched by language, word, author or t.i.tle; the Logos Linguistic Resources, a database of 500 glossaries; and the Logos Universal Conjugator, a database for verbs in 17 languages.

When interviewed by Annie Kahn in an article of the French daily Le Monde dated 7 December 1997, Rodrigo Vergara, head of Logos, explained: "We wanted all our translators to have access to the same translation tools. So we made them available on the internet, and while we were at it we decided to make the site open to the public. This made us extremely popular, and also gave us a lot of exposure. This move has in fact attracted many customers, and also allowed us to widen our network of translators, thanks to contacts made in the wake of the initiative."

In the same article, called "Les mots pour le dire" (The words to tell it), Annie Kahn wrote: "The Logos site is much more than a mere dictionary or a collection of links to other online dictionaries. The cornerstone is the doc.u.ment search program, which processes a corpus of literary texts available free of charge on the web. If you search for the definition or the translation of a word ('didactique', for example), you get not only the answer sought, but also a quote from one of the literary works containing the word (in our case, an essay by Voltaire). All it takes is a click on the mouse to access the whole text or even to order the book, including in foreign translations, thanks to a partners.h.i.+p agreement with the famous online bookstore Amazon.com.

However, if no text containing the required word is found, the program acts as a search engine, sending the user to other web sources containing this word. In the case of certain words, you can even hear the p.r.o.nunciation. If there is no translation currently available, the system calls on the public to contribute.

Everyone can make suggestions, after which Logos translators check the suggested translations they receive."

Ten years later, in 2007, the Logos Library (formerly Wordtheque) included 710 billion words, Linguistic Resources (no change of name) included 1,215 glossaries, and the Universal Conjugator (formerly Conjugation of Verbs) included verbs in 36 languages.

1997 > SPECIALIZED TERMINOLOGY DATABASES

[Summary]

Some international organizations have run terminology databases in their own field of expertise for their translation services. In 1997, some databases were freely available on the web, to be used by language professionals throughout the world and by the internet community at large, for example ILOTERM, maintained by the International Labor Organization (ILO), TERMITE (ITU Telecommunication Terminology Database), maintained by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), and WHOTERM (WHO Terminology Information System), maintained by the World Health Organization (WHO).

In 1997, some specialized terminology databases maintained by international organizations in their own field of expertise were freely available on the web, to be used by language professionals throughout the world and by the internet community at large.

Here are three examples with ILOTERM, maintained by the International Labor Organization (ILO), TERMITE (ITU Telecommunication Terminology Database), maintained by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), and WHOTERM (WHO Terminology Information System), maintained by the World Health Organization (WHO).

ILOTERM is a quadrilingual (English, French, German, Spanish) terminology database maintained by the Terminology and Reference Unit of the Official Doc.u.mentation Branch (OFFDOC) at the International Labor Office (ILO) in Geneva, Switzerland. As explained on its website, the primary purpose of ILOTERM is to provide solutions, reflecting current usage, to terminology issues in the social and labor fields. Terms are available in English with their French, Spanish and German equivalents. The database also includes the ILO structure and programs, official names for international inst.i.tutions, national bodies and employers' and workers' organizations, and names of international meetings and symposiums.

TERMITE, which stands for "Telecommunication Terminology Database", is a quadrilingual (English, French, Spanish, Russian) terminology database maintained by the Terminology, References and Computer Aids to Translation Section of the Conference Department at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland.

This database has been built on the content of all ITU printed glossaries since 1980, and regularly updated with recent entries.

WHOTERM, which stands for "WHO Terminology Information System", is a trilingual (English, French, Spanish) database maintained by the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland. It has included: (a) the WHO General Dictionary Index in English, with the French and Spanish equivalents; (b) three glossaries in English: Health for All, Programme Development and Management, and Health Promotion; (c) the WHO TermWatch, an awareness service from the Technical Terminology, reflecting the current WHO usage, but not necessarily terms officially approved by WHO, with links to health-related terminology.

1998 > THE NEED FOR A "LINGUISTIC DEMOCRACY"

[Summary]

Brian King, director of the WorldWide Language Inst.i.tute (WWLI), brought up the concept of "linguistic democracy" in September 1998: "Whereas 'mother-tongue education' was deemed a human right for every child in the world by a UNESCO report in the early '50s, 'mother-tongue surfing' may very well be the Information Age equivalent. If the internet is to truly become the Global Network that it is promoted as being, then all users, regardless of language background, should have access to it. To keep the internet as the preserve of those who, by historical accident, practical necessity, or political privilege, happen to know English, is unfair to those who don't."

Brian King, director of the WorldWide Language Inst.i.tute (WWLI), brought up the concept of "linguistic democracy" in September 1998: "Whereas 'mother-tongue education' was deemed a human right for every child in the world by a UNESCO report in the early '50s, 'mother-tongue surfing' may very well be the Information Age equivalent.

If the internet is to truly become the Global Network that it is promoted as being, then all users, regardless of language background, should have access to it. To keep the internet as the preserve of those who, by historical accident, practical necessity, or political privilege, happen to know English, is unfair to those who don't."

For Brian King, one factor contributing to the development of a multilingual internet is the "compet.i.tion for a chunk of the 'global market' by major industry players", with "the export of information technology around the world. Popularization has now occurred on a global scale and English is no longer necessarily the lingua franca of the user. Perhaps there is no true lingua franca, but only the individual languages of the users. One thing is certain -- it is no longer necessary to understand English to use a computer, nor it is necessary to have a degree in computer science. A pull from non-English-speaking computer users and a push from technology companies competing for global markets has made localization a fast growing area in software and hardware development."

Another factor is the development of electronic commerce.

"Although a multilingual web may be desirable on moral and ethical grounds, such high ideals are not enough to make it other than a reality on a small-scale. As well as the appropriate technology being available so that the non-English speaker can go, there is the impact of 'electronic commerce' as a major force that may make multilingualism the most natural path for cybers.p.a.ce. Sellers of products and services in the virtual global marketplace into which the internet is developing must be prepared to deal with a virtual world that is just as multilingual as the physical world. If they want to be successful, they had better make sure they are speaking the languages of their customers!"

Founder of Euro-Marketing a.s.sociates and its virtual branch Global Reach, Bill Dunlap championed the a.s.sets of e-commerce in Europe among his fellow compatriots in the U.S., promoting the internationalization and localization of their websites. He wrote in December 1998: "There are so few people in the U.S. interested in communicating in many languages -- most Americans are still under the delusion that the rest of the world speaks English.

However, in Europe, the countries are small enough so that an international perspective has been necessary for centuries."

Peter Raggett, deputy-head (and then head) of the Central Library of OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), wrote in August 1999: "I think it is inc.u.mbent on European organizations and businesses to try and offer websites in three or four languages if resources permit. In this age of globalization and electronic commerce, businesses are finding that they are doing business across many countries. Allowing French, German, j.a.panese speakers to easily read one's website as well as English speakers will give a business a compet.i.tive edge in the domain of electronic trading."

As the internet quickly spread worldwide, companies needed to offer bilingual, trilingual, even plurilingual websites to reach as large an audience as possible, while adapting their content to a given audience, either a country or a linguistic community. Thus the need to internationalize and localize websites, which became a major trend in the late 1990s and early 2000s, with English- language companies and organizations setting up plurilingual websites, in English and other languages, and non-English-language companies and organizations setting up websites in their own language(s) and English.

1999 > BILINGUAL DICTIONARIES IN WORDREFERENCE.COM

[Summary]

Michael Kellogg created WordReference.com in 1999. He wrote much later on his website: "I started this site in 1999 in an effort to provide free online bilingual dictionaries and tools to the world.

The site has grown gradually ever since to become one of the most- used online dictionaries, and the top online dictionary for its language pairs of English-Spanish, English-French, English-Italian, Spanish-French, and Spanish-Portuguese. It is consistently ranked in the top 500 most-visited websites in the world. I am proud of my history of innovation with dictionaries on the internet. Many of the features such as being able to click any word in a dictionary entry were first implemented by me." WordReference was also provided high-quality language forums, and lighter versions of some dictionaries for mobile devices.

Michael Kellogg created WordReference.com in 1999 to offer free online bilingual translation dictionaries.

Much later, Michael wrote on his website: "I started this site in 1999 in an effort to provide free online bilingual dictionaries and tools to the world. The site has grown gradually ever since to become one of the most-used online dictionaries, and the top online dictionary for its language pairs of English-Spanish, English-French, English-Italian, Spanish-French, and Spanish- Portuguese. It is consistently ranked in the top 500 most-visited websites in the world. I am proud of my history of innovation with dictionaries on the internet. Many of the features such as being able to click any word in a dictionary entry were first implemented by me."

How was the idea behind his project? "The internet has done an incredible job of bringing the world together in the last few years. Of course, one of the greatest barriers has been language.

Much of the content is in English and many, many users are reading English-language webpages as a second language. I know from my own experiences with Spanish-language websites that many readers probably understand much of what they are reading, but not every single word", thus the need for a website offering free online bilingual translation dictionaries.

In 2010, WordReference has also offered a monolingual dictionary in English as well as dictionaries from English to other languages (Arabic, Chinese, Czech, Greek, j.a.panese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Turkish), and vice versa. For the Spanish language, there was a monolingual dictionary, a dictionary of synonyms, a Spanish-French dictionary and a Spanish-Portuguese dictionary. Conjugation tables were available for French, Italian and Spanish. Monolingual dictionaries were available for German and Russian.

WordReference Mini was a miniature version of the site to be embedded into other sites, for example sites teaching languages online. A mobile device version was available for dictionaries from English to French, Italian and Spanish, and vice versa, with other language pairs to come.

As stated by Michael Kellogg: "Today [in 2011], I have three main goals with this website. First, continue to create free online bilingual dictionaries for English to many other languages. I strive to offer translations for "all" English words, terms, idioms, sayings, etc. Second, provide the world's best language forums; and third, continue to innovate to produce the best website and tools for the world."

1999 > THE INTERNET, A MANDATORY TOOL FOR TRANSLATORS

[Summary]

The internet became a mandatory tool for translators as "a vital and endless source of information", as stated by Marcel Grangier, the head of the French Section of Central Linguistic Services, which means he was in charge of organizing translation matters into French for the linguistic services of the Swiss government.

He explained in January 1999: "To work without the internet is simply impossible now. Apart from all the tools used (email, the electronic press, services for translators), the internet is for us a vital and endless source of information in what I'd call the 'non-structured sector' of the web. For example, when the answer to a translation problem can't be found on websites presenting information in an organized way, in most cases search engines allow us to find the missing link somewhere on the network." His services also offered an online directory called "Dictionnaires electroniques" (Electronic Dictionaries) with links to most quality dictionaries available for free on the web.

The internet became a mandatory tool for translators as "a vital and endless source of information", as stated by Marcel Grangier, the head of the French Section of Central Linguistic Services.

Marcel Grangier was in charge of organizing translation matters into French for the linguistic services of the Swiss government.

He explained in January 1999: "To work without the internet is simply impossible now. Apart from all the tools used (email, the electronic press, services for translators), the internet is for us a vital and endless source of information in what I'd call the 'non-structured sector' of the web. For example, when the answer to a translation problem can't be found on websites presenting information in an organized way, in most cases search engines allow us to find the missing link somewhere on the network.

Our website was first conceived as an intranet service for translators in Switzerland, who often deal with the same kind of material as the Federal government's translators. Some parts of it are useful to any translators, wherever they are. The section "Dictionnaires electroniques" [Electronic Dictionaries] is only one section of the website. Other sections deal with administration, law, the French language, and general information.

The site also hosts the pages of the Conference of Translation Services of European States (COTSOES)."