WiserEarth in Different Languages
Helping to build a global and multilingual WiserEarth community
We are here to discuss and advocate ways which WiserEarth can be more accessible to all regions and languages.
GROUP DETAILS
Created: Apr 02, 2008
Updated: Nov 22, 2009
Membership: Open
Semi-Private
Topic: Which languages and why?
Posts (1 - 10 of 10)
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Flag comment for removal angusparker about 1 year ago
Go French! Camilla (aka secret mole of the Académie française)
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Thanks JP for this posting.
I just wanted to highlight that French is not only the official language of France and its overseas territories but also in many countries throughout the world including many countries in West Africa.
It is the official language in Bénin, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Congo (Democratic Republic of), Congo (Republic of), Côte d'Ivoire, Gabon, Guinea, Mali, Monaco, Niger, Sénégal, and Togo. It is also one of two or more official languages in Belgium, Burundi, Cameroon, Canada, Chad, Channel Islands, Comoros, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Haiti (the two official languages are French and French Creole), Madagascar, Rwanda, Seychelles, Switzerland, and Vanuatu.
French is the or an official language in 33 countries, second only to English (spoken officially in 45). French and English are the only languages spoken as a native language on 5 continents and the only languages taught in every country in the world. |
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@JPMS: Hope is to allow crowdsourcing translation of the UI into any language by any user and launch when at least one admin and a few editors are on board who natively speak that language. This would require translating all AOFs, and a few key documents. As for Africa, I would love to see minority / indigenous languages on the platform but believe the focus should be on major languages - don't forget English, French, Portugese and Arabic are all spoken as first or second languages by many Africans. If we want to serve the largest number of potential users these languages will be a big plus.
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@ Camilla: List is in no priority order - when a good partner for any of these languages shows up we should be jumping on it. Might want to start with left to right single bit character languages - i.e. not Chinese or Arabic to start with because of the UI implications.
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I fully appreciate the problems associated with expanding WiserEarth into other languages, and the perceived needs to (1) focus on languages that might be easiest to expand into, and (2) focus on languages with the greatest number of speakers; however, on the list of languages to be considered there is not one native African language, and since Africa may very well be one of the greatest arena's of sustainability in the future, I think reaching these diverse people needs to be considered more.
There are groups such as AllAfrica.com that might be willing to be involved. |
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This is great research information.
The selection of which languages and why also needs to be taken into consideration alongside 1) Availability of a partner who will help with the management of the new website in the new language 2) Availability of volunteer translators for that particular language 3) Funding for the development of the site in the new language.
As per the WiserMexico initiative, the convergence of all these factors make Spanish the easiest option to begin with. Secondly, the potential convergence of these factors will likely make French the 2nd easist option. |
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Data sources for posting below are as follows:
Native/Non-native Speakers
Internet Use
Cell phone subscriptions |
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Angus, thank you for doign that research. It is a good reminder for us on the importance of creating our plan for making WiserEarth more international. We could try to engage with existing WiserEarth community members who speak those languages
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I went looking for somewhat hard data around the 'mass' criteria described below (native and non-native speakers, internet and cell phone use) and came up with the list below. I couldn't break out Hindi and Bengali speakers from India as a whole but India has 60M internet users and 233M cellphone users. Arabic numbers may be a bit high because there are many native and non-native speakers with low levels of proficiency. French non-native speaker numbers are probably a little low since there are many people not counted with low levels of proficiency. I would consider removing Hindi, German and Bengali because of overlap with English speakers - so I grayed them out. Leaving a top 10. Data with hidden source columns can be found here. All numbers are in millions.
This list gives pretty good geographic coverage across the globe. Worth noting that Japanese, and to some extent Indonesian (similar to Malay) and Turkish (similar to many Turkic languages in Central Asia) are really single country languages. The rest are found in multiple, generally post colonial/diaspora countries.
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From Bowo and Angus:
Here is a first attempt at writing down criteria for prioritizing which languages WE might internationalize in first. What do you think? There are certainly many different approaches. What rationale would you have for going about it differently?
We have divided the criteria into three. The Mix, the Mass, and the Need. The mix is related to the type of people that we want to attract to WE - based on what knowledge (e.g. traditional sustainable lifestyles) and issues (e.g. population growth/overexploitation of resources) they are dealing with for the movement. The mass is simply where the largest number of onlife and onlife users are. We probably shouldn't restrict ourselves to thinking solely about cuurent internet users because the platform could reach out to mobile phone users at some point. Then the need, in other words why WiserEarth would be useful to them and there is a demand.
Mix 1. People speaking the language represents a significant knowledge bank for the movement 2. People speaking the language are dealing with some of the most pressing issues of our times 3. People speaking the language add to the mix of conservationists, social activists and indigenous people 4. Some people speaking the language have an affinity for the English language (will prove beneficial for the two way exchange of information to and from English)
Mass 1. Number of onlife speaker population
Need 1. No alternative platform exists similar to WE in this language 2. Networked organization (e.g. Association of NGOs) operating in the language wants to assist 3. Champion / Evangelists for WE exist (form basis of governance, admins, editos) |