BlogHer - Vorbote | Herald - Comments

Angloglot?

Pam — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 12:50:16 -0600

I hope I don't come off as Anglocentric - Englocentric? - because I'm absolutely not. I'm a multilinguaphile! (I just made that up.) It's just interesting to note the prevelance of English as the language of business here in the EU. Though also worth noting - my young nephew had to choose a language track recently and the choices were between English and Russian.

Mind you, when China starts eating our jobs for lunch (and I'm not anti-global, either) we'll all be wishing we'd studied Chinese. And the Chinese blogosphere is terra incognita for lots of us. Oh, to have a Rosetta Stone in my head!

Nerd's Eye View

canadian perspective

mir — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 08:45:58 -0600

Northa ameria is a bilinugual continent for a lot of people, living in quebec I am still trying to catch up on the french I missed being an english canadian most of my life. Last summer in san fran I was amazed by how many spanish spekaing people there are in SF, enough to constitute minority language status in my opinion. But the states in all things is different than Canada.

Trying to work in two languages in tech can get really annoying but it certainly does increase ones understanding of why context based translation by machines is so f__ing hard.

At the last Quebec Drupal meet-up everyone wanted to talk about internationalization and why it is so incredibly imperfect.

But it's what people want so I don't know about the lingua franca being all that franca for that much longer.

Miriam
The Flink
"like harnessing a unicorn to harvest potatoes"

Oh and did I mention?

mobilejones — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 04:49:30 -0600

I meant to share with you that most of the Russian language blogs were hosted by Live Journal, and so Technorati doesn't display those links. So, if other than English language blogs aren't counted in the Technorati "rankings" what does that say about the Technorati 100? Or any other lists produced by Technorati?

What would happen if MySpace and LiveJournal blog links were given equal weight and counted in the calculation of "authority"? I suspect it would no longer be called authority. Given there are somewhere between 7 and 8 million LJs and those blogs are "disenfranchised" in the "blogosphere," the truth may be that women *do* dominate the blogosphere. They just aren't being counted. A popular meme among the Camper conferences and developer ranks is to "call bullshit" on marketing messages which obscure the facts. Maybe it's time someone "called bullshit" on Technorati. Again.

Debi Jones
Contributing Editor, Blogging and Social Media
Feed your mobile jones

English not enough

mobilejones — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 04:48:18 -0600

I definitely feel the frustration of the language diversity in the other direction. As we become more of a global community, being an English only speaker, writer and more importantly reader isolates too.

Just today a number of Russian language blogs picked up on one of my articles and it was hugely disappointing to not be able to understand what was being said and not to be able to engage in those conversations. There were lots of comments and somewhere around 10 blogs discussing my article. I'm left out or isolated from that conversation which I would dearly love to participate in. Did they agree with me, did they offer a different perspective, expand on the theme, critique the ideas? I'd love to know. *sigh*

So my lack of language versatility means I'm less engaged in the world. Just English is no longer enough. And yes, Nicole makes a good point...can someone please build better translation tools? I'll gladly pay for your service.

Debi Jones
Contributing Editor, Blogging and Social Media
Feed your mobile jones

Speakers of German are well

Susanne Fritz — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 03:46:57 -0600

Speakers of German are well aware that they're only a minority compared to the rest of the world. But for most Germans English is their second language. It is becoming quite natural for Germans to read or talk English. There are even advertising campaigns in Germany with all-English slogans.

It's nice to see that there is a German blogosphere evolving, but most of those bloggers are reading international blogs too.

So I don't think blogging in your native language restricts your communication with the rest of the world per se.

One problem I do see, though, is that when I'm blogging in German, only very few people will be able to read and understand my blog. When I'm blogging in English, a lot of people I knowpersonally won't be reading the blog, because they consider it to be too hard. So I'm having two blogs, and one's the mirror of the other. German and English. I don't know, how long I will be doing this, because it's a lot of work.

And I'm forever self-conscious about writing in English.

Blogging for an international audience

Mary Tsao — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 00:04:52 -0600

As a former technical writer, I constantly think about my audience. In my personal blog, I write for a mainly American middle class mom audience. That's easy for me; I am one.

But when I write for BlogHer, I try and take into account a more diverse international audience. I am more aware when my writing incorporates slang (subtle or not) and references that don't make sense taken out of context or when translated. I try and modify my writing because I very much agree with your statement:

...more content in a local language means less communication with the world, less impulses, less learning from another.

Bloggers who want their content to reach the broadest possible audience will strive to write for that audience by dropping colloquialisms and slang. The trick is in doing this without losing native flavor.

Mary
BlogHer Contributing Editor, Mommy & Family
Mom Writes

Context?

Pam — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 23:06:22 -0600

I'm curious about how this will evolve in the EU. English seems to be the lingua franca of business. When I look for euro-bloggers, I find many that are exercises in writing in English. A lot of them are quite good (even if many are teen angst live journals) - I couldn't match their skill in another language.

What's my point? Yes, blogging services may need to expand to capture other markets, but other markets may evolve (succumb) to English in order to be part of the international market.

Interesting to watch as I struggle to learn German.

Nerd's Eye View

Vorbote | Herald

Nicole Simon — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 19:42:39 -0600

Did you notice how blogs are getting more and more away from the lingua franca (=English)? The recent top entries of a search engine like Technorati from different languages show trends we should be thrilled and worried about at the same time.

If you think, that the current top search entry on Technorati "Link Texttransparency international" has to with an English topic you just need to take a look at the first entries to figure, it is not. They are German.

While the German blogosphere still is small in numbers compared to the population and how blogging has taken off in other European countries, the readership seems to have reached new heights.

First "Du bist Deutschland" (Link Textexplanation in English) now a blog controversy about the fight between a non profit organization and an ex employee. Most of you may not know about it, but this is hitting mainstream press in Germany at the moment.

And this brings a problem if you can't read German. You will feel as I do feel when I encounter something Spanish, or Asian. You perhaps would like to understand, what is said in here, but you can't and the electronic translation services still fail to give a decent translation.

This trend will only increase and I am interested to see, how many of the now famous services will be able to stay in the market if they don't satisfy the needs of the ever growing, often non English markets. This also means a lot of new business opportunities!

On the other side: more content in a local language means less communication with the world, less impulses, less learning from another.

If the blogging readership in a country grows big enough to sustain their own blogging eco system in their own language there is less need to evolve, less resources to learn from etc.

People tend to go back to their native language, because it is so much easier. If you are a non native English speaker - do you see similar trends in your language sphere?

Or is it totally different from your point of view?