Download - Российский комитет Программы ЮНЕСКО ...

212
• “Human Language Technologies for Europe” (the European
Commission’s book translated into Russian investigates the current
status, problems of machine translation and prospects for Europe).
• “Representing the Languages of Russia and the CIS countries in the
Russian Internet Segment” (the book comprises the papers presented
at the international seminar held in 2007 by the Russian IFAP
Committee and ILCC).
We started with seminars and later went on with the more representative events
to promote this theme and managed to gather a pool of highly professional
experts.
For better understanding of the efforts being taken in Russia to develop
multilingualism in cyberspace we have carried out a target study. We developed
two questionnaires of 40-50 questions each and distributed them among Russia’s
leading universities and the Russian Federation constituent administrations.
As a result, we have got a vast data array for us to analyze and learn who is
doing something to support multilingualism on the Internet, where and what
exactly. The findings are presented in the publication “Language Diversity in
Cyberspace: Russian and Foreign Experience”.
The problem of multilingualism promotion concerns many parties – authorities,
universities, libraries, and archives. However, they all need methodological
support, analytical materials and information in Russian. For that reason, we
have been gathering such information and posting it on the website of the
Russian IFAP Committee http://ifapcom.ru/en.
We came forward with the initiative to hold an international conference
on language and cultural diversity in cyberspace in Russia and got support
of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, Yakut Government,
and UNESCO Moscow Office. The Conference was held in Yakutsk in July
2008, with participants representing 15 countries and all the continents. The
proceedings were published both in the Russian and English languages. The
financial support for the publications was provided by the North-Eastern
Federal University and the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation. The
President of the Russian Federation also devoted a grant for these purposes.
The Conference became Russia’s contribution to the United Nations
International Year of Languages. It helped us win the recognition and invaluable
experience, get acquainted with many prominent Russian and foreign experts
who are today our partners, participants in this conference, and some of them
– the coorganizers. I am speaking about Adama Samassekou and Daniel Prado,
heads of the MAAYA World Network for Linguistic Diversity and Latin Union.