The Internet Shifts East

Logic Bomb writes: "The San Francisco Chronicle has an article discussing the World Intellectual Property Organization's prediction that in less than 10 years, Chinese will be the most widely-used language on the web. Assuming the Internet becomes a truly global entity, this is an obvious (and mathematically correct) conclusion. On the other hand, the implementation of the Internet in places without certain civil liberties provides an interesting challenge to typical Western (idealist) notions about what the Internet does for society. Would you even consider the average wealthy Chinese citizen with online access truly 'on the Internet'? And how is the Internet supposed to draw people together when the same old language barrier still exists?"

Language barrier

[magicslax]

One of the great Geek Goals of science fication has been on the fly translation. If technology continues to improve as quickly as it has, I predict real time, accurate (eh....relatively) language conversion for www material and perhaps even instant messaging type applications.

A growing Chinese user base and the currently massive English speaking web community would certainly create a market for such an app.

Surely, but..

[Zarathustra.fi]

Ni hao,

statistically speaking it might be, but I believe all the business is still being made with plain English, and a normal western surfer won't notice the difference in his daily net chores.

Maybe a lot of computers in the Internet reside inside the Chinese borders, but what I hear their firewalling policies etc. somewhat limit access and thus any cultural influence through the Internet.

So, will this only be an interesting sidenote in the history of the Internet?

Billion citizens != Billion Internet Users

[-tji]

The latest UN statistics [un.org] show China's per-capita income at $798 USD.

Does that sort of income enable the purchase of a computer, or the recurring costs of a phone line and ISP?

If it does, then what are the Internet applications driving this incredible influx of mandarin/cantonese users? Without the huge economic/retail motive that drove American adoption, it's hard to see the huge growth in users and services. And, obviously, there is absolutely no way this will happen by 2007, as it says in the article.

Technology to the rescue

[inkswamp]

And how is the Internet supposed to draw people together when the same old language barrier still exists?

Give it time. On a Pink Floyd mailing list [meddle.org] I subscribe to, one of the more prominent posters is an intriguing fellow from Japan who doesn't speak English and has published a book in Japan [avis.ne.jp] about the band. He posts through a piece of software that provides translations both ways. The software is primitive and far from perfect. Frankly, it can sometimes turn out some pretty puzzling results (I often wonder how my messages to him come out.) Despite that, I--and many others on the list--have gotten to know him and value his contribution. I can see the development of this kind of software becoming more and more worthwhile as the Internet moves east. I look forward to it actually.

--Rick

Re:What about programming languages?

[linca]

Are you saying that HTML is in English?

Knowing the very few words needed to "program" in HTML is very far from speaking English. Many of my friends can program, but don't speak English. Programming is certainly not done in any natural language ; understanding english and mastering HTML are two very diferrent things.

Chinese as a second language?

[Malc]

There might be more people who can read Chinese as their first language than there are Anglophones... but what about the people who speak English or Chinese as their second language? I would say in that light that the internet would have more Anglophones using it.

Can somebody clarify this for me: isn't English one of the main second languages in India. And isn't the population of India supposed to surpass that of China within the next 10 or 20 years?

Old news...

[Anonymous Coward]

As most professional x-pats in the IT sector have known for the last year or so, Chinese will replace English on the net in less than 10 years. More like 5.

If you start your studies now, you might be ready.

As for me, I'm adding Chinese languages skills to Japanese and Korean.

Mathematically correct?

[seebs]

This is unclear. Many many more Chinese speak English than other people speak Chinese. Just as Latin continued to be the main Church language, even in areas where it was not otherwise widely used, English may dominate on the internet whether or not the majority of current users are native English speakers.

Idiot.

[autopr0n]

Do you have any idea how many people live in Chinese cities? Hundreds of millions. There is a hell of a lot of Zhongwen on the web already, despite "This show I saw on PBS".

Anyway, no culture or language is going to have much "influence" on the web outside of their own worlds. English speaking people are going to read English web pages and Chinese people are going to read Chinese web pages. It really makes no difference to anyone else.

Re:Slight mistake in the article

[mizhi]

"There are plenty of countries where that's not an option. You WILL get your news from politically-acceptable sources. You WILL view only acceptable web sites. And if you don't, then you can be dragged off to die in a slave labor camp or shot with your spouse billed for the ammunition. And China is exactly that kind of fascist rathole."

Hmmm... you know, when I was in China... I had absolutely no problems reading /., going to the drudgereport, or accessing my mail. That's not to say that censorship does not exist in China, and their TV news shows most definitely present a slanted view of the world; especially the US... BUT, I think that the Western world gets its own healthy dose of propaganda and whenever I hear stuff about China that is of the ilk "China is a big, nasty evil country.", I question it now. Ofcourse, my ex-gf's father would tell her that certain topics could not be discussed safely over the phone, but then he would send it to her over mediaring... :-/ Perhaps I didn't stay there long enough, but my short stay there made a couple impressions on me... (1) We have alot of propoganda about China that is misleading or downright false (2) Chinese are some of the most capitalistic sobs I've ever met.

Re:A little history lesson

[solferino]

it's a pretty big country to hold with an iron fist.

exactly - does china really have a future as a single big country? - with th south-east booming and leaving other areas (esp. the inland) far behind, with many different languages spoken, and with simply such a diverse country can the place really hold together?

it seems we in 'th west' are as guilty of supporting th monolithic view of china, (which makes it easier for th authoritarian regime to maintain their illusion of power), with our tendency to think all chinese speak th same language, are of th same ethnic stock, etc. etc.

bs

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of China is impoverished.

Been to China in the last 25 or so years? Apparently not.

This, again, is clearly from the mouth of someone with a Western/CNN/Today Show molded point of view.

Stop watching the world thru someone else's eyes and go there and find out for yourself. Just because the streets aren't (yet) crowded with BMW's does not mean a country is poor.

There are other measures of wealth and well-being besides how many stoplights you have to run to get to the next Star Bux.

Compare your families geo-political history to someone in Beijing...lacks a bit of longevity, no? Are you surrounded by an infrastructure that has been moving millions of people and mega-tons of goods for tens of hundreds of years? No.

China is measured by a different set of rules than upstart North America.

Ignorance of something different doesn't mean it's not there.

Your high doubt is founded on nothing more than your limited experience in the real world. Get out from behind that keyboard and find out how many other different cultures that are on this planet...then look back on your own, and still see if you think the world revolves around you.

English in China

[alexalexis]

Because of the massive movement in China to teach it's children English, there have been a few estimates that say there will be more English speakers in China than there are in North America and Europe combined, by the year 2010.

After traveling around China, I'm somewhat skeptical ... but I can pretty much guarantee that the majority of people with Internet connections will have basic English skills. Only the priviledged and educated classes have regular access to computers, and that's a pretty miniscule percentage of the Chinese population.

As a slightly off topic side node, what really surprised me about China was the lack of Communism. Sure, there's a good amount of government subsidising, but it's basically the same as it is in the United States ... only the people doling out the cash seem to band together and spend all the money in one place at a time .. like Bejing, for the upcoming olympics in 2008. It's basicaly a capitalistic, entrepenurial country, and it won't surprise me if the Internet floodgates spring open in the next five years.

Transparent Babelfish, Stupid

[Saeger]

Even if Chinese did become the predominate online language in a decade, so what?

It's a virtual certainty that before 2010 most operating systems -- including the one in your "phone" -- will have a language translation module built-in, enabling anyone to communicate with anyone else in their native spoken and written language (if for no other reason, it's good for business).

"Universal Translators" are hardly science fiction...

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