Language observatory

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As a general term, a "language observatory" is something which is built or implemented to observe language activities in our society. The need for creating such an observatory-like instrument for language activities is becoming more and more evident when taking into account the fact that increasing number of languages are facing danger of disappearing in our current world.

Contents 1 The need for observatories 2 Language observatories in the world 3 See also 4 References

[edit] The need for observatories

According to the UNESCO report "Atlas of the World Languages in Danger of Disappearing", it has been estimated that between 6,000 and 7,000 languages are spoken throughout the world today and, that many more have become extinct. The danger is more keen and evident in the cyberspace. Another UNESCO document, "Recommendation concerning the Promotion and Use of Multilingualism and Universal Access to Cyberspace" noted in its preamble that "linguistic diversity in the global information networks and universal access to information in cyberspace are at the core of contemporary debates and can be a determining factor in the development of a knowledge-based society", and recommended that UNESCO establish "a collaborative online observatory on existing policies, regulations, technical recommendations, and best practices relating to multilingualism and multilingual resources and applications, including innovations in language computerization."

[edit] Language observatories in the world

There are several language observatory activities and projects already emerged in various part of the world. List below shows some of them.

• Language Observatory
• Linguasphere Observatory
• UNESCO Observatory on the Information Society:The portal has a special section focusing on Cultural Diversity and Multilingualism

[edit] See also

• Language
• Endangered language
• Extinct language
• Multilingualism

[edit] References

• Measuring Linguistic Diversity on the Internet, edited with an introduction by UNESCO Institute for Statistics, Montreal Canada, UNESCO, 2005. French version is also available.
• The Language Observatory Project, Mikami, Y., Zavarsky Pavol, Mohd Zaidi Abd Rozan, Izumi Suzuki, Masayuki Takahashi, Tomohide Maki, Irwan Nizan Ayob, Massimo Santini, Paolo Boldi, Sebastiano Vigna, In Poster Proceedings of the Fourteenth International World Wide Web Conference (WWW2005). pp.990-991,10-14 May 2005, Chiba, JAPAN. ISBN 1-59593-051-5