While We Wait For The Babel Fish

While We Wait for the Babel Fish Stephanie Booth

Human? Internet
Languages
in the human world
on the internet
Is it a fit?

Multilingual Humans
Who is multilingual?
more multilinguals than monolinguals
Being human among humans means living in a state of ever incomplete multilingualism.
Mario Wandruszka

What are my languages?
know / don't know (too binary)
Know? Speak? Read? Write? Read a book? A newspaper article? Have a conversation? Write a letter? Write a book? Give a talk?

Internet: Space Cruncher
Freedom from spatial constraints
more intercultural contact
change of initial obstacle:
space language

Linguistic Borders
Online, the strongest borders are linguistic.
Some multilingual people act as bridges.
How could our tools assist them in their task?

Monolingual Silos
But the internet is multilingual!
multilingual community
<>
multilingual people
multiple monolingual spaces
mixing languages

L10n advice for Tool Builders
localise early, localise smart
plan non-EN from the start (not an afterthought)
language != country
regional variations (fr-fr, fr-ch, fr-qc...)
crowdsource
in-house « linguist »
smart user language detection

Detecting User Language
Specified by:
profile (tool-side)
browser preferences
OS/browser language
geographical location
one language? n languages?
priority?
how proficient?

Misconceptions
But everybody speaks English!
country = language

Geographical Abuse
IP => country => language, right?
Guilty: PayPal, Amazon, eBay, Google
country != language bad localisation

Countries can be important
for language: one factor amongst several
for laws: very important
taxes & censorship
Examples:
- shipping
- porn

L10n Insufficient
Localisation:
translation of the interface into another language
monolingual in various languages
« Multilingualisation »: (yes, it's ugly)
mixing languages
manages code-switching
different language combinations

Blogging Tools: WordPress
well localised
language is a blog-level attribute
assumes you blog in one language
no in-built strategies for mixing languages
=> 1 blog per language
a solution: other-language excerpts
translation is too hard
keeps mono&multi audience quite happy
keeps the bridge-blogger very happy

Presence Tools: Twitter
not localised => adoption issue
non-EN communities present
language filtering?
language detection?

The Multilingual Challenge
Making a space both:
multilingual-friendly
monolingual-friendly
How do we keep everybody happy?
different language combinations
different language skills
No solution is perfect for everybody.

Going Multilingual a strategic and technical problem
Strategic
how do we allow languages to mix?
what do we translate?
what do we show people?
how do people define their language skills?
Technical
design
encoding
lang, hreflang (HTML)
language detection
automated translation
Remember. Most people are multilingual.

Bonne route !
Flickr Photo Credits
romerican
Paco CT
Antoon Kuper
Hobvias Sudoneighm
Grant MacDonald
Zoom Zoom
A JC
Claude Covo-Farchi
Stephanie Booth
Lausanne, Switzerland
http://climbtothestars.org
[email_address]
Skype: steph-booth
reboot9, 31.05-01.06.2007 Copenhagen

While We Wait For The Babel Fish

by sbooth on Jun 06, 2007

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