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Minority Language Use On The Internet Booming
from the that's-a-deal-in-any-language dept
The Guardian's Onlineblog points to some stats on the languages spoken by internet users, and comes to the conclusion that English's dominance on the Web is quickly being "eroded", implying Chinese as the culprit, even though its percentage has remained pretty static over the past 9 months or so, like all the other languages in the top ten, apart from English, whose percentage dropped nearly 4 points. The real growth is in languages outside the top ten, the percentage of which is up 6% over the period, with nearly 20 percent of internet users speaking one of these less popular languages. The catch to these numbers, though, is that they just measure languages spoken by people, but appear to only allow people to be counted once -- so if somebody speaks both French and English, they're only counted as speaking one or the other. So, apart from the usual caveats associated with statistics, bear that in mind. But the numbers do seem to illustrate that the pool of net users is expanding geographically and culturally around the world.
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Racism in Many Languages
We're also seeing an explosion in non-English racist cartoons, stuff that respectable publishers would never allow in their home countries. Poles and Russians are now beating up each other's diplomats whenever they're seen on the street.
Over in my country, there's a racist cartoon strip that has gone on for over 1,000 episodes, with kids in a classroom representing different nationalities:
http://www.4koma.com/access/0506/nihon/index.htm
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Re: Racism in Many Languages
Wow...Is that pretty standard all over?
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Re: Racism in Many Languages
In most countries, kids receive a nationalistic education in which they are taught that their own country is the "victim", and neighboring countries are inhabited by devils. The education system/media may also add some pretenses about how racism is "bad". As a consequence, the masses believe that they are being "oppressed" by an American-dominated multiculturalist system that does not allow them to express their true opinions. There may be serious racial tensions brewing under the surface, but most countries sweep such problems under the rug.
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any stats on Dorpish?
Any stats on the number of speakers of Dorpish, a language used mainly for posting off-topic replies?
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dorpus is right this time
and it's not awfully off-topic. English use on the internet is declining, just as English use in America is declining. been to a Sears in California recently? Signs in SPANISH everywhere for the lazy illegal immigrant Mexicans that don't want to learn English. Check out Orkut.. people have been reporting hate messages in Portugese recently, basically saying "F U Americans!" or check out the Mexican "La Raza" websites (and the blatent racism that goes on south of the border)...
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Re: dorpus is right this time
Not only Mexicans speak Spanish! English is the hardest language to learn, the rules are not as consistent as many other languages. Before you start calling immigrants "Lazy," get off your high horse and try thinking about how much classes cost and how everyone in this country was an immigrant. I was born and raised in San Diego and I am so sick of hearing people bad mouthing Hispanics. IF YOU DON'T LIKE TO SEE SPANSISH SIGNS GET THE HELL OUT OF CALIFORNIA, OTHER WISE SHUT UP!
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