Languages used on the Internet: Difference between revisions
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The number of non-English pages is rapidly expanding. The use of English online increased by around 281% from 2001 to 2011, a lower rate of growth than that of Spanish (743%), Chinese (1,277%), Russian (1,826%) or Arabic (2,501%) over the same period.<ref>{{cite web|last=Rotaru|first=Alexandru|url=http://www.scottmclay.co.uk/foreign-language-internet-good-business/|title=The foreign language Internet is good for business |accessdate=21 June 2011}}</ref> |
The number of non-English pages is rapidly expanding. The use of English online increased by around 281% from 2001 to 2011, a lower rate of growth than that of Spanish (743%), Chinese (1,277%), Russian (1,826%) or Arabic (2,501%) over the same period.<ref>{{cite web|last=Rotaru|first=Alexandru|url=http://www.scottmclay.co.uk/foreign-language-internet-good-business/|title=The foreign language Internet is good for business |accessdate=21 June 2011}}</ref> |
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Large international organizations, both [[Commerce|commercial]] and [[non-profit]], see the need to reach out to multiple language groups. Microsoft and Google have content in between 40 and 80 languages at their various web sites. [[Wikipedia]] is available in 287 languages. The official web site of [[Jehovah’s Witnesses]] provides content in about 700 languages.<ref>[http://www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesses/activities/publishing/jw-org-over-300-languages JW.ORG Is Now Read in Over 300 Languages] jw.org, October 2013</ref> The official website of the [[Global Recordings Network]] provides |
Large international organizations, both [[Commerce|commercial]] and [[non-profit]], see the need to reach out to multiple language groups. Microsoft and Google have content in between 40 and 80 languages at their various web sites. [[Wikipedia]] is available in 287 languages. The official web site of [[Jehovah’s Witnesses]] provides content in about 700 languages.<ref>[http://www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesses/activities/publishing/jw-org-over-300-languages JW.ORG Is Now Read in Over 300 Languages] jw.org, October 2013</ref> The official website of the [[Global Recordings Network]] provides in over 6000 languages.<ref>[http://globalrecordings.net/en/download Global Recordings Network]</ref> |
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==Content languages for websites== |
==Content languages for websites== |
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Revision as of 23:16, 9 September 2014
Most web pages on the Internet are in English, with varying amounts of information available in many other languages.
Languages used
A study made by W3Techs showed that in April 2013, almost 55% of the most visited websites used English as their content language.[1] Other top languages which are used at least in 2% of websites are Russian, German, Spanish, Chinese, French, Japanese, Arabic and Portuguese.
Note that these figures are based on the one million most visited web sites (e.g. 0.27% of the total web sites according to figures of December 2011), according to Alexa.com, and language is identified using only the home page of the sites in most cases. As a consequence, the figures show a significantly higher percentage for many languages (especially for English) as compared to the figures for all websites. The figures for all websites are unknown, but some sources estimate below 50% for English – see for instance Towards a multilingual cyberspace.[2]
The number of non-English pages is rapidly expanding. The use of English online increased by around 281% from 2001 to 2011, a lower rate of growth than that of Spanish (743%), Chinese (1,277%), Russian (1,826%) or Arabic (2,501%) over the same period.[3]
Large international organizations, both commercial and non-profit, see the need to reach out to multiple language groups. Microsoft and Google have content in between 40 and 80 languages at their various web sites. Wikipedia is available in 287 languages. The official web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses provides content in about 700 languages.[4] The official website of the Global Recordings Network provides audio recordings in over 6000 languages or dialects.[5]
Content languages for websites
Estimates of the percentages of Web sites using various content languages as of 12 March 2014:[1]
| Rank | Language | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | English | 55.7% |
| 2 | Russian | 6.0% |
| 3 | German | 6.0% |
| 4 | Japanese | 5.0% |
| 5 | Spanish | 4.6% |
| 6 | French | 4.0% |
| 7 | Chinese | 3.3% |
| 8 | Portuguese | 2.3% |
| 9 | Italian | 1.8% |
| 10 | Polish | 1.7% |
| 11 | Turkish | 1.3% |
| 12 | Dutch | 1.3% |
| 13 | Arabic | 0.8% |
| 14 | Persian | 0.8% |
| 15 | Czech | 0.7% |
| 16 | Swedish | 0.6% |
| 17 | Indonesian | 0.4% |
| 18 | Korean | 0.4% |
| 19 | Vietnamese | 0.4% |
| 20 | Romanian | 0.4% |
| 21 | Greek | 0.4% |
| 22 | Danish | 0.3% |
| 23 | Hungarian | 0.3% |
| 24 | Thai | 0.3% |
| 25 | Finnish | 0.2% |
| 26 | Slovak | 0.2% |
| 27 | Bulgarian | 0.2% |
| 28 | Norwegian | 0.2% |
| 29 | Hebrew | 0.1% |
| 30 | Lithuanian | 0.1% |
| 31 | Croatian | 0.1% |
| 32 | Bokmål | 0.1% |
| 33 | Ukrainian | 0.1% |
| 34 | Serbian | 0.1% |
| 35 | Slovenian | 0.1% |
| 36 | Catalan | 0.1% |
All other languages are used in less than 0.1% of websites. Even including all languages, percentages may not sum to 100% because some websites contain multiple content languages.
Internet users by language
Estimates of the number of Internet users by language as of 31 May 2011:[6]
| Rank | Language | Internet users |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | English | 565,004,000 | 27% |
| 2 | Chinese | 509,965,000 | 25% |
| 3 | Spanish | 164,969,000 | 8% |
| 4 | Japanese | 99,182,000 | 5% |
| 5 | Portuguese | 82,587,000 | 4% |
| 6 | German | 75,423,000 | 4% |
| 7 | Arabic | 65,365,000 | 3% |
| 8 | French | 59,779,000 | 3% |
| 9 | Russian | 59,700,000 | 3% |
| 10 | Korean | 39,440,000 | 2% |
| 11–36 | Others | 350,557,000 | 17% |
See also
- Internationalization and localization
- Language localization
- Website localization
- List of countries by number of Internet users
- List of countries by number of broadband Internet users
- List of countries by number of Internet hosts
- Multilingualism
- English in computer science
- Global digital divide
- Rural Internet
- Unicode
- Computer recycling
- Computer technology for developing areas
References
- ^ a b c "Usage of content languages for websites". W3Techs.com. Retrieved 30 December 2011. Cite error: The named reference "UofCLBWApril2013" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
- ^ NET.LANG: Towards a multilingual cyberspace, Laurent VAnnini and Hervé le crosnier (eds.), Maaya Network, C&F éditions, March 2012, 446 pp., ISBN 978-2-915825-08-4
- ^ Rotaru, Alexandru. "The foreign language Internet is good for business". Retrieved 21 June 2011.
- ^ JW.ORG Is Now Read in Over 300 Languages jw.org, October 2013
- ^ Global Recordings Network
- ^ a b "Number of Internet Users by Language", Internet World Stats, Miniwatts Marketing Group, 31 May 2011, accessed 22 April 2012
External links
- Internet World Stats — Global Internet usage by language
- Estimation of English and non-English Language Use on the WWW (2000)
- World GDP by Language (1975–2002)
- Writing the Web’s Future in Many Languages – NYTimes.com (December 2008)
- English translation of the 23rd CNNIC Statistical Survey Report on Internet Usage in China
- List of CNNIC statistical reports
- Measuring Linguistic Diversity on the Internet, UNESCO (2006)
- Twelve years of measuring linguistic diversity in the Internet, UNESCO (2009)
- Language Observatory, Japan Science and Technology Agency
- FUNREDES Observatory of linguistic and cultural diversity on the Internet [dead link]
