[Air-l] Hungarian and others

[Cunliffe D J (Comp)]

Hi,

I tend to agree with Mark's estimate of the percentage of websites in
English. Another interesting figure estimated by Global Reach was that
almost 95% of the online population in 2004 were native speakers of just 11
languages (English, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, German, Korean, French,
Portuguese, Italian, Russian and Dutch). UNESCO had a figure on their web
site that suggested that 90% of the world's languages were not represented
on the Internet. All of these figures need to be taken with a huge pinch of
salt of course.

The issue of scholarly publishing in lesser-used languages is a complex one
as it has impacts on post graduate and undergraduate teaching in that
language. This in turn raises questions about the use of the language in
schools and so on. 

There are also issues of whether publications in lesser used languages will
be included in assessments of research quality (which then impact funding)
such as the Research Assessment Exercise in the UK.

In an environment where dissemination is electronic it should be possible
for authors to provide native language and English versions of their papers.
There is a newly started paper-based journal "Cyfrwng: Media Wales Journal"
in which half the papers are in English and half in Welsh. All other
information, such as the Editorial is bilingual. Translations of the Welsh
papers are provided online for subscribers. No Welsh translation is provided
for the English papers, presumably because Welsh speakers are all fluent
English speakers too.

If there was a will to include other languages in AoIR there are
possibilities, but there is also likely to be more work and to raise other
issues (do I have to provide an English translation before my paper is
reviewed - if so isn't that a waste if it is rejected and aren't you
favouring people who only summit in English (less effort, less cost) - if
not, can you really find Welsh speaking specialists to review my paper
fairly?)

Be seeing you,

Daniel.


====
Daniel Cunliffe
Minority Cultures & ICT Group
University of Glamorgan
Wales, UK.