The Internet

[johnman]

Ok a strange question enter my head yeasterday and i cant make head nor tail of it. The Internet is is huge yes? And as english is the worlds most common language then the vast majority of the interent will be written in english.....
Lets take a country like Denmark as far as i know, no other country speaks danish and their population is not huge, so the internet wont have a much content on it they can access? I know things like wikipedia are multi-language and lots of Danish can speak english but just roll with me here.
Is the internet smaller for those that dont speak english? Its somthign ive never thought about and would like to know your veiws.

 

[Ionami]

I think you may mean the "Internet", but perhaps not.

 

[johnman]

Well this thread is screwed.... :0

 

[Neesa]

The internet is a series of tubes....

The internet links to everyone in the world and many websites that have different language settings for different countries. The internet isn't geared to just English speakers.

 

[xitel]

Well this thread is screwed.... :0

Hit the edit button and change the subject.

 

[Galletea]

Just a suggestion, most browsers have spellcheckers, to avoid making those typos.

As for the topic, I imagine it would limit those without a knowledge of English, but it has long been the language of commerce, and thus as close to an all encompassing language as we have.

 

[AntiAntagonist]

"Bigger" and "smaller" probably aren't the terms that should be used.

Some information is available for each language, some isn't.

While I can read/speak French and English as well as understand some East Asian cultures those are mere prerequisites for full comprehension of writing.

If one were to say that part of the internet is inaccessible due to language then the same could be said of countries. However it's not true. If a francophone were to hop a plane to Italy they could navigate around and even ask for help from non-francophones. On the internet there are a few options: translation, summarization and assumption.

In translation the content is translated by third party in varying degrees of success (friend, babelfish, Google, etc).

In summarization the content is alluded to by a third party or simply explained.

In assumption the viewer makes guesses at the meaning and content of a site.

 

[_Janny_]

Even if there are countries that don't speak English that doesn't mean that they can't make their own websites. Anyone can contribute to that and enlarge the circle of sites in their language, so I doubt the Internet feels smaller for them...

 

[johnman]

Websites like the Escapist would be harder to use, people from all over the world use it.

 

[Uncompetative]

Ok a strange question enter my head yeasterday and i cant make head nor tail of it. The Internet is is huge yes? And as english is the worlds most common language then the vast majority of the interent will be written in english.....
Lets take a country like Denmark as far as i know, no other country speaks danish and their population is not huge, so the internet wont have a much content on it they can access? I know things like wikipedia are multi-language and lots of Danish can speak english but just roll with me here.
Is the internet smaller for those that dont speak english? Its somthign ive never thought about and would like to know your veiws.

You mean The World Wide Web. The Internet just connects resources. As to the Danish part being smaller... you can't have used Google to automatically translate a foreign website - sure, it doesn't do it very well, but it helps...

 

[TheSanityAssassin]

I think so.
If you can't speak English you're probably hugely limited on the Internet.

 

[Ophiuchus]

And as english is the worlds most common language

That's where it falls apart. The world's most widely spoken language is Mandarin, not English.

Lets take a country like Denmark as far as i know, no other country speaks danish

Greenland, the Faeroe Islands and part of northern Germany, also it's a mandatory second language in Iceland... but that's just me being picky.

 

[johnman]

And as english is the worlds most common language

That's where it falls apart. The world's most widely spoken language is Mandarin, not English.

Lets take a country like Denmark as far as i know, no other country speaks danish

Greenland, the Faeroe Islands and part of northern Germany, also it's a mandatory second language in Iceland... but that's just me being picky.

I have a friend on steam whos danish and speaks very good english

I was waitng for someone to mention Mandarin, but i dont count that as there are also more English speakers in China than there are in America

 

[Howlingwolf214]

Does this belong in Gaming Discussion?

 

[ygetoff]

The internet is a series of tubes. It's not bigger or smaller, it's set, in a way similar to plumbing.

 

[Steelfists]

The internet is a series of tubes. It's not bigger or smaller, it's set, in a way similar to plumbing.

No.

 

[ygetoff]

And as english is the worlds most common language

That's where it falls apart. The world's most widely spoken language is Mandarin, not English.

Lets take a country like Denmark as far as i know, no other country speaks danish

Greenland, the Faeroe Islands and part of northern Germany, also it's a mandatory second language in Iceland... but that's just me being picky.

The reason Mandarin is the most spoken language is because China has a huge population. English is a universally recognized trade language.

 

[ygetoff]

The internet is a series of tubes. It's not bigger or smaller, it's set, in a way similar to plumbing.

No.

What do you mean by "no"?