The future of language online

May 20th, 2010 by Lise Rubarth | located in Uncategorized | trackback

Our planet is made up of a vibrant mix of cultures and languages – and several decades into its existence, the web is finally catching up. For a long time, English was the dominant language of the web – if you wanted your work to be read, you had to write in English or risk obscurity. But times, they are a-changin’.

I was inspired recently by one of my favorite NPR shows, On the Media, when I heard a fascinating episode called: “Bridging the Online Language Barrier.”

The show, hosted by Mark Phillips, suggest that the way language is evolving on the web is similar to what happened during the Renaissance, when Latin was the primary language for writing and reading. That began to change when people began to write for their local audiences.

That same phenomenon is now happening online; according to the show, over 400 million Chinese are using the internet, Arabic internet users have increased by over 2,000 percent in the last decade, and – perhaps most tellingly – only 27% of today’s internet users speak English.

Which language is ultimately dominant – or if one will even be a dominant – is less interesting to me than the notion that many different languages can thrive online. I’m excited by the idea that people who don’t speak the same language can still understand each other, share ideas, and communicate meaningfully.

Here at Ribbit, we think of voice as an object much like any other data object. It powers workflow, initiates and modifies business processes, and affects outcomes. Though embedding voice into workflow is very much in its infancy, it has the potential to dramatically change the way business gets done. What if technology could help your business move fluidly across language barriers, opening whole new markets and opportunities that were never possible before? What if voice and language were simply flavors, like colors, that enhance what you do but don’t prohibit knowledge from flowing freely?

It’s a whole new way of seeing the world – and who knows what could happen as a result? I personally believe that we have so much to learn from each other… and I’m pretty excited about being able to tap into knowledge from other cultures and create business models that aren’t possible today.

What interests you about the ways language is evolving online?

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