An inclusive sustainable development represents one of the goals foreseen by the UN 2030 Agenda. The adjective "inclusive" implies the fulfilment of numerous conditions including the potential active participation of cultural and linguistic minorities. It is clear that “development” in current times is mainly based on information communication technologies and it is evident that the “mother tongue” of such technologies is the English/American language. In addition, relevant part of on-line available content and services are delivered in a limited number of languages, as appears on Internet World Stat latest report (June 2017) taking into account the top ten languages used on line the gap between the first and the last is more than eleven times where the first two languages represents more than 45% of the available content. Switching from on line languages to native speakers if we refer to Ethnologue1 report the first language is Chinese, the native speakers are almost 1.2 billion, Spanish native speakers, second placement, are about 400 million, third English 360 million-odd native speakers, fourth India that has 23 official languages, altogether with Hindi/Urdu chief among them , Arabic is around 250 million native speakers, Portuguese is spoken by 215 million native speakers, 170-odd million Bangladeshis, roughly 170 million Russian native speakers, 130 million native Japanese speakers, and around 100 million Punjabi/Lahnda native speakers. Ethnologue, accordingly with the World Atlas and previous UNESCO IFAP Multilingualism Conferences, reports that nowadays 7099 different languages are spoken around the world, this is a rough data because a third of languages are now endangered, often with less than 1,000 speakers and even down to few units remaining. Meanwhile, just 23 languages account for more than half the world’s population.If we compare the two stats it is already evident the linguistic gap. Chinese language content and services available on line is increasing as well as the number of Chinese users, on the contrary Indian presence does not cope with native speaker’s index as it happens for Punjabi and others. In a similar situation, the key aspect is that languages outside the range of both (spoken & on-line) the first ten are almost absent and related population must refer to other languages in order to access and enjoy content and services. It is worth, as a consequence, to introduce the specific role played by information communications technologies.

Sustainable development inclusivity and multilingualism: the challenge

RONCHI, ALFREDO
2017-01-01

Abstract

An inclusive sustainable development represents one of the goals foreseen by the UN 2030 Agenda. The adjective "inclusive" implies the fulfilment of numerous conditions including the potential active participation of cultural and linguistic minorities. It is clear that “development” in current times is mainly based on information communication technologies and it is evident that the “mother tongue” of such technologies is the English/American language. In addition, relevant part of on-line available content and services are delivered in a limited number of languages, as appears on Internet World Stat latest report (June 2017) taking into account the top ten languages used on line the gap between the first and the last is more than eleven times where the first two languages represents more than 45% of the available content. Switching from on line languages to native speakers if we refer to Ethnologue1 report the first language is Chinese, the native speakers are almost 1.2 billion, Spanish native speakers, second placement, are about 400 million, third English 360 million-odd native speakers, fourth India that has 23 official languages, altogether with Hindi/Urdu chief among them , Arabic is around 250 million native speakers, Portuguese is spoken by 215 million native speakers, 170-odd million Bangladeshis, roughly 170 million Russian native speakers, 130 million native Japanese speakers, and around 100 million Punjabi/Lahnda native speakers. Ethnologue, accordingly with the World Atlas and previous UNESCO IFAP Multilingualism Conferences, reports that nowadays 7099 different languages are spoken around the world, this is a rough data because a third of languages are now endangered, often with less than 1,000 speakers and even down to few units remaining. Meanwhile, just 23 languages account for more than half the world’s population.If we compare the two stats it is already evident the linguistic gap. Chinese language content and services available on line is increasing as well as the number of Chinese users, on the contrary Indian presence does not cope with native speaker’s index as it happens for Punjabi and others. In a similar situation, the key aspect is that languages outside the range of both (spoken & on-line) the first ten are almost absent and related population must refer to other languages in order to access and enjoy content and services. It is worth, as a consequence, to introduce the specific role played by information communications technologies.
2017
Global Expert Meeting - Multilingualism in Cyberspace for Inclusive Sustainable Development
978-5-91515-068-2
global economy
globalisation
multilingualism
Sustainable development
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11311/1063857
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