MAAYA NETWORK NET.LA NG TOWARDS THE MULTILINGUAL CYBERSPACE EDITION AND COORDINATION : LAURENT VANNINI HERVÉ LE CROSNIER C&F ÉDITIONS 2012 Associate website : http://net-lang.net Other books (in french) from C&F éditions : Libres savoirs, les biens communs de la connaissance Ouvrage collectif coordonné par l’association VECAM Mai 2011, ISBN 978-2-915825-06-0 aux sources de l’utopie numérique De la contre-culture à la cyberculture : Steward Brand, un homme d’influence Par Fred Turner Avril 2012, ISBN 2-915825-10-6 Dans le labyrinthe Évaluer l’information sur internet Par Alexandre Serres Avril 2012, ISBN 978-2-915825-22-0 Complete catalog and online bookstore : http://cfeditions.com ISBN PDF edition 978-2-915825-24-4 C&F éditions, mars 2012 35C rue des Rosiers – 14000 Caen, France http://cfeditions.com This book is published under a Creative Commons license : attribution, share alike (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/fr/). CONTENTS Credits 9 FOREWORDS 10 Irina Bokova General Director, UNESCO 13 Abdou Diouf General Secretary, La Francophonie 17 José Luis Dicenta General Secretary, Union Latine 21 Dwayne Bailey Research Director, ANLoc 23 Daniel Prado Executive Secretary, Maaya Network 27 PART 1 33 WHEN TECHNOLOGY MEETS MULTILINGUALISM Daniel Prado Language Presence in the Real World and Cyberspace 35 Michaël Oustinoff English Won’t Be the Internet’s Lingua Franca 53 Éric Poncet Technological Innovation and Language Preservation 69 Maik Gibson Preserving the Heritage of Extinct or Endangered Languages 75 Marcel Diki-Kidiri Cyberspace and Mother Tongue Education 89 PART 2 102 DIGITAL SPACES Stéphane Bortzmeyer Multilingualism and the Internet’s Standardisation 105 Mikami Yoshiki & Shigeaki Kodama Measuring Linguistic Diversity on the Web 119 Joseph Mariani How Language Technologies Support Multilingualism 141 Vassili Rivron The Use of Facebook by the Eton of Cameroon 161 Pann Yu Mon & Madhukara Phatak Search Engines and Asian Languages 169 Hervé Le Crosnier Digital Libraries 185 Dwayne Bailey Software Localization : Open Source as a Major Tool for Digital Multilingualism 205 Mélanie Dulong De Rosnay Translation and Localization of Creative Commons Licenses 221 PART 3 227 DIGITAL MULTILINGUALISM : BUILDING INCLUSIVE SOCIETIES Viola Krebs & Vicent Climent-Ferrando Languages, Cyberspace, Migrations 229 Annelies Braffort & Patrice Dalle Accessibility in Cyberspace : Sign Languages 249 Tjeerd de Graaf How Oral Archives Benefit Endangered Languages 269 Evgeny Kuzmin Linguistic Policies to Counter Languages Marginalization 287 Tunde Adegbola Multimedia and Signed, Written or Oral Languages 311 Adel El Zaim Cyberactivism and Regional Languages in the 2011 Arab Spring 325 Adama Samassékou Multilingualism, the Millenium Development Goals, and Cyberspace 337 PART 4 348 MULTILINGUALISM ON THE INTERNET : A MULTILATERAL ISSUE Isabella Pierangeli Borletti Describing the World : Multilingualism, the Internet, and Human Rights 351 Stéphane Bortzmeyer Multilingualism and Internet Governance 373 Marcel Diki-Kidiri Ethical Principles Required for an Equitable Language Presence in the Information Society 387 Stéphane Grumbach The Internet in China 401 Michaël Oustinoff The Economy of Languages 407 Daniel Prado & Daniel Pimienta Public Policies for Languages in Cyberspace 423 CONCLUSION 437 THE FUTURE SPEAKS, READS AND WRITES IN ALL LANGUAGES Adama Samassékou President of Maaya LAURA KRAFTOWITZ born in 1982 at Pittsburgh, splits her time between Paris and the Middle East. She is the author of numerous articles about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the forthcoming memoir The End of Abu Jameel Street, regarding her time as a human rights activist in the Gaza Strip. She is currently completing her Master’s Degree in Political Science and History at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, where she is researching the past century of Israeli and Palestinian binational ideation. HERVÉ LE CROSNIER is a senior lecturer at the University of Caen Basse-Normandie, where he teaches Internet technologies and digital culture. He is currently working with ISCC, the Institute for Communication Sciences of the CNRS. His research focuses on the impact of the Internet on social and cultural organization, and extending knowledge in the public domain. He is one of the founders of C&F éditions. JOHN ROSBOTTOM was Principal Lecturer in Computer Science at the University of Portsmouth, UK, until retirement in 2010. He now pursues interests and activities in several areas that were precluded during a busy working life, but continues to enjoy working on computing projects and using his language skills in the translation of technical books and documents. LAURENT VANNINI after working as a linguistic diversity activist for the Babels network, a journalist, and a telecom- munications consultant, decided to travel the world and return to academe, where he is currently studying in Arts and Languages at EHESS. His work probes “the disappearance of the animal and oblivion”. In addition to his writing on ICTs, he penned the French translation of the book From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism, by Fred Turner (C&F éditions, 2012). 8 CREDITS Maaya Scientific Committee Adama Samassékou Daniel Prado Daniel Pimienta Marcel Diki-Kidiri Louis Pouzin Yoshiki Mikami Evgeny Kuzmin Editing and Coordination Laurent Vannini Hervé Le Crosnier Translation John Rosbottom Laura Kraftowitz Laurent Vannini Graphic Design and Page Layout Nicolas Taffin Kathleen Ponsard With the support of Unesco, communication and information sector La Francophonie Union Latine ANLoc, South Africa IDRC / CRDI, Canada 9 FOREWORDS UNESCO works to create the conditions for dialogue among civilisa- tions, cultures and peoples, based upon respect for commonly shared values. It is through this dialogue that the world can achieve global vi- sions of sustainable development encompassing observance of human rights, mutual respect and the alleviation of poverty, all of which are at the heart of UNESCO’s mission and activities. UNESCO’s mission is to contribute to the building of peace, the eradication of poverty, sustainable development and intercultural dialogue through education, the sciences, culture, communication and information. http://unesco.org 12 PRESERVING AND PROMOTING LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY BY IRINA BOKOVA General Director, UNESCO Languages are essential components of individual and common human heritage. They are the first and foremost vehicle for expressing identity, communicating ideas, attaining educational, economic and political autonomy, and promoting peace and sustainable human development. Languages are important for sharing information and knowledge and for transmitting unique cultural wisdom, including across generations and nations. They form an intrinsic part of the identity of individuals and people, and they are of vital importance to manage the cultural diversity of our world. They open opportunities for dialogue, cooperation and mutual understanding. In this perspective, a plural and diverse linguistic space can expand the conditions for such dialogue by allowing each and every individual to contribute freely in the languages of their choice. At the same time, languages are a fragile resource which requires en- dorsement, revitalization and promotion. Today, a significant number of languages are at risk of disappearing. About 97 per cent of the world’s population speaks about 4 per cent of the world’s languages. Conversely, about 96 per cent of the world’s languages are spoken by only about 3 per cent of people around the world. This means that at least half of more than 6,000 languages worldwide are losing their speakers. It is estimated that about 90 per cent of the languages may be replaced by dominant languages by the end of the twenty-first century. Irina Bokova 13 As the information and communication technologies (icts) became central to all aspects of social, cultural, economic and political life, it is important to ensure that everyone has access and can contribute with their own content to the multilingual internet. icts can be a powerful tool for the safeguarding and promotion of linguistic diversity. In prin- ciple, the internet is open to all languages of the world, but only when certain conditions are met, and when the necessary human and financial resources are in place. A multilingual internet is essential for nations, communities and individuals to access, share and use information and resources which are critical for sustainable development and for manag- ing innovation and change. unesco is strongly committed to promoting multilingualism on the in- ternet. A plural linguistic cyberspace allows the wealth of diversity to be put in common. These goals guide the Organization in its work with the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (icann). They are also debated in the various meetings of the Internet Governance Forum (igf) as well as in the World Summit on Information Society Forums. unesco’s partnership with the International Telecommunications Union (itu) in the Broadband Commission for Digital Development has also placed emphasis on the need for rich, culturally and linguistically diverse local content and applications as a key target in world leaders’ commit- ment to broadband inclusion for all. The importance of cultural and linguistic diversity is also echoed in the Recommendation concerning the Promotion and Use of Multilingualism and Universal Access