World Language Documentation Centre to promotes 'cyberspace multilingualism' (fwd)

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World Language Documentation Centre to promotes 'cyberspace multilingualism'
http://www.publictechnology.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=9515

The World Language Documentation Centre (WLDC) has been officially launched
at the offices of UNESCO in Paris.

WLDC promotes multilingualism in 'cyberspace' and is putting systems in
place for the maintenance and sustainability of the wealth of information
about the languages of the world.

WLDC is composed of world-renowned experts in language technologies,
linguistics, terminology standardisation, and localisation, including Dr
Lee Gillam of the University of Surrey's Computing Department.

The launch of WLDC is due, in part, to a significant expansion to a series
of international standards that are fundamental to a number of information
systems, and the need to encapsulate a broad range of linguistic and
technical expertise.

Developed countries may think of the Web as ubiquitous, but there is a
distinct lack of content in a significant majority of the world's
languages.

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) publishes the
standards that result in identifiers, referred to by some as metadata, such
as 'en' and 'fr' that, in computer systems and in web content, stand for
'English' and 'French'.

Some web search engines allow users to specialise their searches to pages
that use these language identifiers, Accoona being one example.

Until this year, there were about 400 such identifiers in ISO standards;
early in 2007 this number was expanded to over 7,500, and in 2008 this
number is expected to expand way beyond 30,000.

The reason for this significant expansion is to allow for greater accuracy
in identification of languages, in all their written, spoken and signed
varieties.

Until now, ISO standards have only catered for a small proportion of
languages, and a variety of studies have demonstrated the Web does not
present a reliable surrogate for the use of languages in the world.

These new ISO standards provide for the ability to index and retrieve the
potential content of a truly diverse and multilingual information society
and for the future development of technologies with greater
language-targeting features.

Significant steps towards community support and review for these activities
are being undertaken through the OmegaWiki and OpenProgress initiatives.

Furthermore, discussions are already underway in relation to the so-called
'Multilingual Internet' - described by some as a major element of the Next
Generation Internet.

UNESCO is widely expected to announce 2008 as International Year of
Languages, with WLDC actively participating.

Related links to this article:
World Language Documentation Centre
http://www.thewldc.org/