Zernik, Dror (Dror.Zernik@COMPAQ.COM)
Wed, 8 Sep 1999 10:28:05 +0200
I am surprised by the number 43%. I think it is too small. I would say 60%
of Internet users don't know English. 43% is probably the percent of people
that don't know the ABC. But you see - I live on the other side of the
string and I hear you through the tin can :-). Many of the Israeli Internet
users are kids under 12. Kids in Israel start learning English at the age of
10. It takes them a year at least before they can know simple words, and
another year before they read. So they surf mostly Israeli (Hebrew) sites.
They chat (this probably counts for 80% of their Internet time), and they
read mail. All of this happens in Hebrew.
But why are you surprised? I would say that if we look at Internet traffic -
it is comprised of: chats, e-mail, porno, MP3, and then browsing of
"textual" pages. I don't know what is the right order of amount of usage;
probably porno is higher than anything else. But clearly - the need to read
(English) text pages is very minimal. In any case, I would say that if we
look at the total bytes that fly on the wires then the English text is
negligible.
Dr. Dror Zernik Tandem Labs Israel,
Compaq Inc.
Tel: 972-4-8323050 Ext. 203 Gutwirth Park,
Technion City, Haifa
Fax: 972-4-8225006 Israel.
32000
-----Original Message-----
From: James Bryce Clark [mailto:clark@sposil.com]
Sent: Tuesday, September 07, 1999 9:04 PM
To: ECTech Mailing List
Cc: Tim Finin
Subject: Re: ecTechNews 01.02 / 43% non-English
speakers
>43% OF INTERNET USERS CAN'T READ ENGLISH
>
>Forbes has an interesting article "E-Business - Lost in the
>translation 0" which discusses language translation
technology for the
>web.
[http://www.forbes.com/tool/html/99/aug/0827/feat.htm] It gives
>an intriguing fact that "80% of the Internet's content is
in English, but
>43% of Internet users today can read no English at all." *
* *
Can this be even faintly true? The article sources the
factoid in question
to "Global Reach, a San [Francisco]-based international
online marketing
firm." Are these folks hired by eLingo, the company whose
translation
services are being shilled in the article, to prop up their
business plan?
I would be delighted to believe the assertion, but it
doesn't fit with other
anecdotal evidence -- a regular drumbeat of concerns about
(i) the thinness
of international backbone pipes, (ii) perceptions of
disenfranchised
non-English-speaking communities, etc. Remember the global
coverage maps
in the back of each edition of the ISOC magazine? For years
it looked like
a bare tree in late autumn -- looked like the only way into
most countries
on the map was BITNET through a string and two tin cans.
Is there reliable
evidence that the language mix of users has actually changed
this much?
Jamie Clark
Spolin & Silverman LLP Santa Monica
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