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itself, on the language’s situation, e.g. on where and when it is spoken and on the
people who speak it, the way they live and their culture. One of the first decisions
to make is whether the site should be written in the less-diffused language or
in some more widely diffused one. The first option gives a good visibility to the
supported language as it makes it become a working language on the web site.
But only those who speak it can read and appreciate the web site’s content. The
second option reveals the less-diffused language to much more people in the
world, but let it remain an object one can talk about instead of becoming a mean of
communication. The best approach is likely to be a bilingual web site making use
of the less-diffused language as well as a more widely spread one.
2.1. Linguistic Data
Information about the less-diffused language encompasses phonetic and
phonology data, morphology and syntax data, orthography and writing
systems, all kinds of literary texts (proverbs, tales, poetry, short stories, novels,
songs, mail and CV models, advertisements, and so on.) Each of these items
can be developed on several pages and where it is suitable video files can be
included and lessons can be designed for learners of the language. We’ll come
back on this last point further down.
One of the most important language data which might deserve a whole separate
website is the language lexicon. The technical approach to online dictionaries
much depends on how they are intended to be used. It may be a word reference
with a search field and a browser that lays out the result for each looked-up
word. It may be presented as a full page of a dictionary with several entries in
an alphabetic list. Multilingual dictionaries are usually based on semantic links
that emphasize both similarities and differences between languages.
The growth of a language entails the enrichment of its vocabulary. As a lessdiffused
language becomes a working tool in cyberspace, it will necessarily
need a technical terminology to talk about the Web site itself and activities
carried online. A new way of speaking will come out and it is a good practice to
talk about it and discuss it on a wiki space. The need of a series of specialized
technical vocabulary will soon come up leading to a growing terminological
activity in a variety of knowledge fields, which deserves a dedicated web site.
2.2. The Language’s Situation
Linguists love classifying languages. So, one of the basic kinds of information
looked for about a less-diffused language is its classification amongst its
cognates. In which language kinship and typology does it fit In which country
or countries is it spoken What can be learned about its history What is its
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