Language Tempest At Orkut

Quirk writes "Reuters is carrying an article outlining an ongoing headbutting session between English-speaking users of Goggle's orkut and the Portuguese-speaking users of Brazil. The orkut site has more than 769,000 members; 41.2% are Brazilians and 23.5% are Americans. The sites are now mostly in Portuguese, and English-speaking users are complaining that the service is intended to be in English. Orkut is a service meant to develop by way of invitation, and the Brazilians claim since they are inviting their Brazilian friends it doesn't make sense to communicate in English. Brazilian internet users averaged an estimated 13 hours and 51 minutes in May, eight minutes more than for Americans."

Article text posted here for your convience

SAO PAULO, Brazil (Reuters) - Brazil has butted heads with the United States this year on issues ranging from cotton subsidies to the war in Iraq .

But perhaps none of the battles has been so personal as the one being fought on the Internet.

Thousands of Brazilians have become devotees of Orkut (http://www.orkut.com [orkut.com]), a popular new social-networking site from Web search leader Google Inc.

Orkut allows members to organize themselves into online communities of friends, and friends of friends, to discuss everything from chess to sandwiches.

But the rush of Brazilians to join Orkut and rival social networking sites has upset some online users, who complain of a proliferation of messages posted in Portuguese, Brazil's native tongue.

Some users have even started communities specifically for people to air their gripes on this issue.

The United States has at least 153 million Internet users, compared with Brazil's 20 million. Still, Orkut said Brazilians dominated its membership roster in June, outnumbering Americans for the first time.

The site says it has more than 769,000 members, making it one of the largest and most popular of its type on the Internet. About 23.5 percent of the users are from the United States, while another 41.2 percent are Brazilians.

Iranians are a distant third place at about 6 percent.

SELECTIVE MEMBERSHIP

Orkut, named after Google software engineer Orkut Buyukkokten, made its debut in January and is still in the testing stages. Part of its allure is its exclusivity -- one can only join at the invitation of another member.

"Orkut maps one's social prestige, and Brazilians are by nature gregarious," said Beth Saad, a professor at the University of Sao Paulo's School of Communications and Arts.

Although more than one-fourth of Brazilians live in poverty, those who can afford Internet access have become avid Web surfers.

In terms of time spent on the Internet, Brazilians edged out the United States in May for the second month in a row, according to Ibope/NetRatings. The market researcher estimates that Internet use for Brazilians averaged 13 hours and 51 minutes in May, eight minutes more than for Americans.

The number of Brazilian visitors to community sites and online diaries rose 14.6 percent to 3.5 million in May from January, Ibope/NetRatings said.

Tammy Soldaat, a Canadian, got a sample of Brazilian wrath recently when she posted a message asking whether her community site on body piercing should be exclusive to people who speak English.

Brazilian Orkut users quickly labeled her a "nazi" and "xenophobe."

"After that I understood why everyone is complaining about these people, why they're being called the 'plague of Orkut,"' she said in a site called "Crazy Brazilian Invasion."

John Gibbs of Mountain View, California, has founded a community called "So many Brazilians on Orkut."

"When the average Orkut user goes to look at community listings to see what's out there, he'll see a list populated with pretty much all Portuguese communities," Gibbs said. "This is highly frustrating since Orkut is not a Brazilian service."

But Mateus Reis, a publicist who lives in Sao Paulo, said users should be free to write what they want, in the language of their choosing.

"Since we can invite anyone we want at Orkut, and my friends are Brazilians, it doesn't make sense talking to them in English," Reis said in Portuguese. "I use the language I know."

His compatriot Pablo Miyazawa has a more moderate view.

"Brazilians have the right to create anything they want in any language they want," Miyazawa said. "The problem is to invade forums with specific languages and write in Portuguese. Brazilians are still learning how to behave in the Net."

AN INTERNET FORCE

The Brazilians' ardor for the Internet extends to other community-based sites, and Web ent

Language barrier

How have other major international sites dealt with the language barrier?

Re:Language barrier

Set up a localized site, e.g. www.orkut.br where everything's in Portuguese

Re:Language barrier

it is probably not wise in this case. it shall be an internet community site and making barriers based on country borders in internet is imho futile. may be it wont take long before portuguese (or chinese, european or anything) will be majoriry language in internet in general. prepare for that. the only thing you can do now is to try fight back and invite english speaking friends. waht about me? well, its not my native language, but the native one - czech, is so small tah it cannot be dangerous in the next 500 years. And I would appreciate orkut invite.

Re:Language barrier

Or better yet, orkut.us, where the minority USA folk can go. :^)

Re:Language barrier

How have other major international sites dealt with the language barrier?

Você americanos sujos pensa de que você possui tudo, e Slashdot, mas é justo não assim.

Fure seu hegemony internacional e seu McDonalds e seu Hollywood onde o sol não brilha.

Pela maneira, eu sou amor o Mac Grande e esse Julia Roberts!

[Google "translation" of above: "You American dirty think of that you possess everything, and Slashdot, but is just not thus. Hegemony pierces international its and its McDonalds and its Hollywood where the sun does not shine. For the way, I am love Mac Great e this Julia Roberts!"]

[Original English source for the "Portuguese" response produced by Google "translation": "You dirty Americans think that you own everything, including Slashdot, but it's just not so. Stick your international hegemony and your McDonalds and your Hollywood where the sun doesn't shine. By the way, I'm loving it the Big Mac and that Julia Roberts!"]

Re:Language barrier

You might have had a point if English wasn't the accepted norm for international communications and just something the States imposed on everyone. However English is the accepted language, so it makes sense that sites that are targeted at an international audience use English or keep everyone apart and just have localized versions. Not that I really care, I'm never invited to anything.

Re:Language barrier

And you're assuming that everyone who uses the net is using it for international communications. Many people could care less about people in other countries, and use the net for a plethora of non-international reasons. There's no reason for a Brazilian to use a non-native language which is the norm for international communications to talk with another Brazilian across town.

Re:Language barrier

Many people could care less

Couldn't care less.

Re:Language barrier

No. Care had an older meaning in English. The phrase "I don't care to" currently means that one does not want to do it, but originally meant that one did not care (have a concern about) about doing it.

"Would you bring ice cream to the picnic?"
"I don't care to." - (I don't mind)

It's still used that way in parts of the midwest US.

Re:Language barrier

Uhh... there are alternate language versions of Slashdot. The English one just happens to be the original and the largest.

See www.slashdot.jp [slashdot.jp] and so on.

--
Evan

They havn't.

As far as I know, wikipedia's articles are completly seperate for diffrent languages. Most sites are single-language only.

But that could be a solution for Orkut. Just have users select a language when they sign in, and shield them from everything not in that language -- if they choose. They could also set things up so users can let the system know what languages they can speak, and if they would be interested in receiving machine translated communications.

Re:what the fuck are you talking about.

perlchild:

I speak two and a half [languages] myself. [Proceeds to misunderstand and argue against autopr0n's original post]

autopr0n:

Are you illiterate?

Looks like English is that "half" language. ;)

Take slashdot for an example

Here's one way of thinking about it. It seems the article is talking about users complaining that in a forum that started out as English, Portugese comments get posted and the language shifts to Portugese. I tried to imagine this happening on slashdot (for example, on this thread). At first I thought it wouldn't be any big deal. But then I thought, what if I was following a thread on slashdot, and suddenly it switched to Portugese. It'd be kinda like threadjacking. It's annoying to read an English thread, then someone posts a response in Portugese, because then I can no longer follow the thread. I'd like to read what that person said, but I can't. And any Portugese speaking people who were commenting would probably switch to Portugese if they posted any more comments too. Maybe I'll post something in English, and the response will be in Portugese. It really comes down to netiquette. Sure they have a right to comment however they want, it's just not polite to switch languages mid-stream. If you reverse roles (e.g. suppose I can read Portugese) and I post English comments in a thread that's all Portugese, then people start switching to posting in English, that would leave out all the Portugese-only people. Although creating a separate area may help somewhat, a better solution to the problem is just informing users how to behave better. If it was common knowledge, the community would police itself and frown upon that kind of behavior. I know polite internet conversation seems like an oxymoron to many, but for all the trolls and BS that gets posted on slashdot, it's pretty readable, and well-thought out arguments still happen.

Why Fight?

If you are communicating with others in your circle of friends, you should speak the same language.

If I'm in a restaurant, and the people at the table next to me are speaking Korean, it doesn't affect the conversation at my table in the slightest.

I guess we could all switch to Esperanto, the Unitarian Univeralist of languages.

Re:Why Fight?

If the people at the table next to you are speaking Korean, it doesn't affect you.

Though when people nearby are speaking a language you don't understand, and looking in your direction, and laughing and pointing, well it's hard to not imagine things.

Do you have Korean inlaws?

Because you just described what basically all non-Koreans go through when meeting the Korean extended family for the first time. Sitting there, having Mr. Kim and Aunt Park having an animated discussion in Korean that ends in laughter and a finger pointed squarely at you.

I speak from experience. :-)

Re:Why Fight?

Yeah! everyone knows english is the only language all people should be expected to know!

I know that your trying to be sarcastic, but I did find this to be true. I did an 11 country tour of Europe a while back and I never had any problems communicating in English. If one person couldn't understand me, a passerby would eventually over hear and graciously translate.

I doubt this would be the case if I spoke chinese, japanese, hindi, or in orkuts case, portugese.

Of South America, I've only traveled to Chile and Venezuala, but my experiences their were even more english friendly. People would insist on speaking English so as to brush up their skills. I speak far more Spanish here in Miami than I ever did in South America.

I'm not saying English 'should' be the most universaly accepted language, but it does seem to fit the role pretty good.

Re:Why Fight?

let me guess, you went to Barcelona, Paris, London, Amsterdam, Brussels, Copenhagen and the like (eg, the capitals of western Europe). As a European citizen, I'll paint you another picture: south of France, countryside in Spain, Italy (you don't have to go to the countryside there), countryside in Denmark, Switserland. when you leave Western and Southern Europe behind, and head to Eastern Europe, the knowledge of English is even less! (I only have experciences of Romania, Hungary and Czech Republic) I've been to all of these countries, and in each I've had problems using English, in some I've even had problems using anything but their own language.

Re:Why Fight?

its more like the persons sitting next to you at the table, begin to try and speak to you in korean, and then expect you to be able to bend over backwards to communicate with them.

No, it's like the people at the table next to you start speaking to you in Korean, and because you don't know Korean you make a complaint to the management of the restaurant. There is no expectation on the English-speakers to bend over backwards, or do anything at all.

But even that analogy isn't quite correct. I think the English speakers are upset because they are creating forums in the hope of developing communities of people they can be a part of, and their forums end up being overtaken by Portugese speakers. And so they are excluded from their very own creation.

Well, the English speakers have a point

English is the international language. It is, by far, the most spoken second language. It is the international language of finance, bussiness, diplomacy, flight and more.

The problem is that there are just too many languages for a person to speak them all. Most people have trouble with more than 3 or 4, even if taught from birth (it gets more difficult later) and 15-20 is pretyt much the limit for even exceptional people.

Thus there is no reaonable way you can expect everyone to know Portuagese, or any other language. However you can have a reasonable expectation that most people will have at least a functional proficency in English. Thus, if you wish to communicate with a worldwide audience, English is the language you should choose.

I'm not saying people should always have to use English on the Internet, but it IS rather annoying to have people expect you should know their primary language when they want to communicate. I've had this problem in MMORPGs. People want to speak to you in French or Japanese or Korean or Spanish and so on. Problem is it is just unreasonable to ask a person to try and learn every one of the hundreds of languages on this Earth, much less the reality that most people DON'T know more than 1 or 2 languages.

However, it's a fair bet most people have at least a basic English proficiency, and thus should be the prefered choice for online discourse if you intend to reach a worldwide audience.

Re:Well, the English speakers have a point

You seem to assume that when somebody speaks to you in a non-English language that they are either (a) expecting you to know their language, or (b) demanding that you learn their language.

I don't think either of these assumptions is true. They're just trying to communicate the best way they know. If you can't speak their language you could politely say so ("sorry, I don't speak Portugese/French/etc."), or just say nothing.

Nope that is bad manners

The first thing anyone with at least some social skills should learn is how to ask in the local language if that person speaks another language.

Just starting to babble in your own language to someone who may or may not speak it is the hight of impoliteness. You always ask in the local language wether someone else speaks your language or another mutual language. How am I supposed to know that your speaking god knows what or even asking me a question? You might be warning me that I am about to step into some dog shit or a nutcase.

The only exception perhaps is english in holland. You can pretty much take it for granted that nobody in the world speaks dutch and english is pretty much a second language to us. We also don't really mind, we are a small nation in a big world and either we speak english or become like the french. Easy choice eh?

Anyway this is all about speaking in the real world. Personally I think it would greatly help if people tried to speak in english on the net. Why? Esperanto or whatever is deader then dead dodo on the day of the dead. Bury it already. The net is about exchanging information easily and accross the world. Bit hard if we are going to keep up the existing language barriers. Imagine if everyone on /. posted in their local language. It would die an instant death. Most amazing are the anti-socials who go to an english forum then post a question in their own language and wonder why no-one responds.

Re:Well, the English speakers have a point

Excuse me, but as a the holder of a degree in Linguistics, I can tell you that those are the numbers for *native* speakers.

However, it is correct that Mandarin Chinese is the most widely spoken native language on earth. However, it's also worth noting that nearly all of those native speakers live in one country, and most of the rest live in countries are adjacent or very nearby.

Native English speakers, on the other hand, live in many countries all over the world. The largest geographically contiguous block are in the United States and Canada, but they are also in many other countries.

The numbers on native speakers of English and Spanish are also accurate if outdated; they are roughly equal.

However, it's when you bring in all of the non-native speakers that English shows its international dominance. English is by far the most widely spoken second language in the world. Nearly all speakers of Spanish, Mandarin, and Hindi are natives, but there are more non-native than native English speakers in the world.

With regard to the language of Diplomacy, you're wrong there, too. French *was* the language of diplomacy for many years, but is so no longer and has not been for decades. It was replaced by English. If French is in fact the official language of the UN (you don't cite a source, but I'll take your word for it; I'm too lazy to cite sources tonight myself), that's the only place left in diplomacy where that is still true. Go to any embassy or consulate in the world and you can probably find someone on the staff who speaks English; you'd be hard put to find someone on the staff who speaks French, unless:

A) It's located in a Francophone country;
or

B) It's a French embassy or consulate.

I know a number of people who speak Japanese as a second language, a few who speak Mandarin and/or Cantonese as a second language, a couple who speak German as a second language and a few who speak Spanish as a second language, but the only French speakers I know are all natives. French just is not a terribly important international language anymore. That's not a criticism, just an observation; French is only important in Francophone countries.

Re:Why Fight?

Yeah, I find it really arrogant that people are complaining about how others communicate between themselves. It's not like every American tourist that visits a foreign country starts speaking that nation's native tongue even when just talking to their travelling companions, is it?

As an Orkut member I do find the behaviour of some of its users annoying (Orkut-wide and community-wide spamming by a very small handful of people, people who ignore the rules of the communities that they join, etc) but I find that it's not that inconvenient compared to what I've got out of my Orkut experience. I've made at least a dozen real-world friends that I regularly go out with, and several more that are online only at this stage, and that's only after three months' membership.

Yes there are plenty of Brazilians on the site, and yes, they do have a tendency to join every community that even half interests them (it's like some people play a game of "let's see how many communities I can join", and they seem to do the same with collecting friends too) but that's not just a trait exclusive to them: users of other nationalities can be just as bad.

I'll also point out that Portuguese isn't the only non-English language used on Orkut. I've seen several, including ones that you wouldn't immediately think of, such as Arabic.

Live and let live is what I say. On Orkut and elsewhere.

Re:Why Fight?

The Iranians also; they seem to have hundreds of people on their friend lists and I keep getting mails sent to "friends of friends" that I can't read :-p

For the most part, though, they speak English.

Re:Why Fight?

Yeah, I find it really arrogant that people are complaining about how others communicate between themselves. It's not like every American tourist that visits a foreign country starts speaking that nation's native tongue even when just talking to their travelling companions, is it?

Well I'm an Orkut member and I'll tell you what the problem is. The problem is that your inboxes are constantly filled with Portugese spam that is sent to "foo community." Every community has its share of Portugese spam. Whether it's US specific or not. It's really annoying. An easy fix would be language specific communities, but everyone is too lazy to join thoses...

Re:Why Fight?

[I]t's a selfish idiot problem.

That's pretty much the root of every human-related problem I've ever encountered.

Re:Why Fight?

That's funny, most of the people I meet on the internet seem to speak asshole fluently.

Re:Why Fight?

Yea but thats not whats happening. Its more like...

• Start conversation with a bunch of people from around the world, speaking english, on some particular topic (ie Simpsons, Slashdot, etc)
  
• Large number of Brazilians come in and hijack the group, flooding it with messages in Portuguese
  
• Group becomes unusable for english speakers all around the world (not just us Americans)
  

If the Brazilians were nice enough to fork and create groups that discussed topics in Portuguese, it wouldnt be a big deal. Orkut should have an upgrade right now, providing an "official group language" field for groups, so one can tell if they're joining the "Simpsons - English" or "Simpsons - Portuguese" groups. But many of the Brazilians walk in, act like they own the place, and hijack Orkut. I dont use it anymore for this reason.

Re:Why Fight?

Orkut should have an upgrade right now, providing an "official group language" field for groups, so one can tell if they're joining the "Simpsons - English" or "Simpsons - Portuguese" groups.

It already does in a way. When you create a new group you can select the interface language. This does, however, not show up when you're not the community's creator.

If you join a community that has a Spanish interface, chances are communications there will be in Spanish.

I agree though that this doesn't really help with the problem at hand which is people taking over English-speaking communities and flooding them with foreign-language content (which is probably one of the rudest thing you can do on Orkut, as far as I am concerned - it's not that hard to start your own community).

Google's Orkut dev team should probably have a look at this when they redesign the community section (and they should really really implement sub-categories while they're at it).

Correction

It would be "chuta os gringos de merda".

I don't know how many languages you can curse in, but from my experience Americans, French, Polish and Mexican (and mostly every other nationalyty) online players are just as annoying. I am yet to see a group of tennagers that can not be described as "Rude, arrogant, xenophobic, obnoxious", Americans most of all. I left the "racist" out because I believe it is out of place, specially for Brazilians (unless you believe "American" is a separate race - "gringo" means mostly "American" but can also be used for "foreigner").

Microcosm

It's interesting, Orkut seems to be mimicing "real world" human society. This fight over languages looks a lot like the conflits over immigration that happen in every country. If anything, I would take this latest conflict as proof that internet forums can function as true communities, analogous to those in the physical world. In that sense, I consider this development to be an accomplishment for Orkut.

Re:Microcosm

I was thinking of American history. In the early 20th century, there was a tremendous amount of immigration into the United States. Many people were sharply critical of this, arguing that america was by and for only Americans. The immigrants argued that it was as much their country as the native citizens.

Fast forward to 2004, Orkut, a community that was originally primarily english speaking recieves huge influx of brazilian "immagrents" The english speakers argue that their community was by and for English speakers. The brazillians argue that they were invited and that the community is now also theirs.

Notice a parallel?

maybe Im missing something

but due to the friend based invite model that this site employs, maybe the english speaking memebers of the site should start inviting more english speaking people, to equal if not overtake the brazillian tally.

Just a thought