English on the Internet: Encyclopedia II - English on the Internet - Numbers Considered

English on the Internet - Numbers Considered

In considering which languages dominate the Internet two statistics are considered: the first language of Internet users and the language of actual material posted on the web.

English on the Internet - Internet Users

Internet user percentages usually focus on raw comparisons of the first language of those who access the Internet. Just as important is a consideration of second and foreign language users; i.e., the first-language of a user does not necessarily reflect which language they regularly employ when using the Internet.

English language users appear to be a plurality of Internet users, consistently cited as around one-third of the overall (near 1 billion). This reflects both the relative affluence of English-speaking countries and high Internet penetration rates in them, as well as the degree to which the United States and U.S. technology firms have led the Internet revolution.

This lead may be eroding, due mainly to a rapid increase of Chinese users[1], which broadly parallels China's advance on other economic fronts. In fact, if first language speakers are compared, Chinese ought, in time, to outstrip English by a wide margin (1.3 billion and still climbing for Chinese, 300+ hundred million but static for English).

First language users among other relatively affluent countries appear generally stable, the two largest being German and Japanese who each have between 5 - 10% of the overall share.

If a gradual decline in English first language users is inevitable it does not necessarily follow that English will not continue to be the language of choice for those accessing the Internet. As Chinese closes the gap with English it must be noted that:

• There is an enormous pool of English second and foreign language speakers who employ the language in technical, governmental and educational spheres[2] and access the Internet in English. In India, for example, while perhaps only 4% are truly fluent (a still impressive 40 million), this group controls the domains of professional prestige.[3]
• Chinese is rarely employed as a lingua franca outside of China by non-ethnic Chinese; even countries bordering the country or with large Chinese minorities (Mongolia, South Korea, Malaysia) tend toward English as a commercial and educational language. Further, China is not truly monoglot: Standard Mandarin is official but different spoken variants of Chinese are often mutually unintelligible; the diaspora disproportionately speaks Cantonese.

In future then, English and Chinese may have roughly equal positions at the top of the overall Internet first language users but English will likely continue to dominate as the default choice for those accessing the Internet in a second language.

Other world languages that could conceivably begin to challenge English include Spanish and Arabic, though it remains to be seen if these, too, will be largely isolated to first-language speakers on the Internet as is Chinese.

English on the Internet - Internet Content

One widely quoted figure for the amount of web content in English is 80%[4]—this enormous figure is somewhat self-re-enforcing (widely cited, it "becomes true") and is likely too high. Other sources show figures five to fifteen points lower, though still well over 50% [5][6]. There are two notable facts about these percentages:

• The English web content is greater than the amount of first language English users by as much as 2 to 1. This underscores the degree to which second language users are employing English when using the Internet.
• Given the enormous lead it already enjoys and its increasing use as lingua franca in other spheres English web content may continue to dominate even as English first-language Internet users decline. This is a classic positive feedback loop: new Internet users find it helpful to learn English and employ it on-line, thus reinforcing the language's prestige and forcing subsequent new users to learn English as well.

Beyond the dominance of U.S. technology firms in driving the Internet noted above, certain other factors (some predating the medium's appearance) have propelled English into a majority web-content position. Most notable in this regard is the tendency for researchers and professionals to publish in English to ensure maximum exposure. The largest database of medical bibliographical information, for example, shows English was the majority language choice for the past forty years and its share has continually increased over the same period [7]. Again, this doesn't necessarily correlate to first-language statistics; the fact that non-Anglos regularly publish in English only reinforces the language's dominance.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Numbers Considered", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki