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The ICT Industry
Issues of linguistic diversity in global information networks and universal
access to information in cyberspace dominate the agenda of the discussions
on information society. The ICT industry should therefore become a crucial
participant in supporting and enhancing a language’s status. The ICT industry
can channel its energy into the following areas:
• articulating and promoting technical standards, taking into account
ethnic minorities’ demands;
• creating complete computer fonts for minority languages;
• participating in the establishment of international UNICODE
standards and the implementation of the unified keyboard layout;
• localising existing software and creating free software to support local
languages;
• elaborating computer language models and machine translation
systems;
• supporting minority languages in e-mail, chat and other messaging
utilities;
• uploading electronic study books and dictionaries in minority
languages;
• establishing multilingual domains and e-mail addresses;
• creating software for multilingual internet domain names and content;
• establishing localised, minority language retrieval systems;
• creating information and other websites and portals in bilingual
versions;
• making information resources available electronically; and
• developing the non-textual sphere of the internet (such as voice over
IP, data streaming, and video on demand).
The above measures can be efficient and bring about their desired results only
when the entire ethnos – not only its cultural, intellectual and ruling elite – makes
major intellectual and emotional efforts, and displays goodwill, desire and interest
in the survival and development of its unique culture and linguistic identity.
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