Re: [semanticweb] Semantic Web and other Human Languages?

On Sun, 16 Jul 2006 13:42:11 +0200, iris garden <iris2000sa@yahoo.com>  
wrote:

> I want to ask about the Semantic Web use in other Human Languages. I  
> know that most Semantic Web Applications are oriented toward the English  
> speaking people. I wonder if there are papers, projects, communities  
> handling SW in other languages such as French, Chines, Hebrew, etc.
> I also want to know the portion of these languages compared to English,  
> and any issues or challenges facing the different SW language  
> interoperability.

Iris,

I know there is an active community in Spanish ('cause when I was at W3C I  
did a bunch of work to help activate it). The mailing list in question is  
web-semantica-ayuda - it has steady rather than spectacular traffic. I  
guess there are others.

A clear problem I have seen is that a lot of people publish, and even do  
their daily work, in english. This is not just in semantic web, but very  
prevalent in academia and fairly prevalent in commercial research too. The  
reason it is a problem is twofold.
  - In many cases the level of english is not as good as native english  
speakers, and this creates a negative impression (and often marginal  
differences in linguistic skill create major differences in ability to  
communicate, which compounds the problem).
  - Further, concentration on publishing in a foreign deprives a particular  
language community of important resources in their own language.

I can't see this changing in the near future though. Which is a shame.

The Semantic Web is better designed for internationalisation than the vast  
majority of web technology - one thing that was done right.

cheers

Chaals

-- 
   Charles McCathieNevile, Opera Software: Standards Group
   hablo español  -  je parle français  -  jeg lærer norsk
chaals@opera.com          Try Opera 9 now! http://opera.com

Received on Monday, 17 July 2006 12:36:44 UTC