I'm not sure how I missed this story last May, but it was the end of another school year and my head was likely in the thick fog of report cards and summer planning. The language teacher in me was warmed to discover that the first non-latin domain name was finally launched six months ago. It's about time. Latin based languages only represent a small population of the world. This means that only a small percentage of people in the world can access the internet in a meaningful way. I read an article on Mashable and learned that 42% of all internet users are from Asia. In the last 10 years Arabic online has increased over 2500%. Language is an incredible tool for communication that allows us to exchange information, thoughts, and ideas with others. Non-Latin language speakers have the same inclination to engage in this exchange. Now, they have equal access to the internet. This is truly monumental.
It will be interesting to see how the internet changes as it begins to reflect the diversity of people, cultures, and languages in our world. It's true that the advent of the web has made our world smaller and more connected, but it wasn't until 6 months ago that it became truly international.
No comments:
Post a Comment