IGF 2019 WS #122 Strengthening Multilingual Internet towards Digital Dividend

Relevance to Theme: The topic has been chosen based on the challenges of the digital penetration. Language is the medium through which all information society exchanges occur. Language is a fundamental medium for all communication, the basis by which individuals and communities express themselves whether in oral tradition or in written text.Language diversity ensuring that the riches of culture that diversity represents will be preserved for all countries and for the world as a whole. The cultural issue of languages on the Internet serves as a counter to the perceived concentration of issues surrounding the information society on ICTs and their impact. Increasingly, information and knowledge are key determinants of wealth creation, social transformation and human development. Language is a primary vector for communicating information and knowledge, thus the opportunity to use one’s language on the Internet will determine the extent to which one can participate in emerging knowledge societies.
Many languages are not present on the Internet. There is a vast linguistic divide, which exists in cyberspace today and this will only exacerbate the digital divide. Everyone therefore should have access to the multilingual Internet. Nations, communities and individuals without access to the Internet and its resources will certainly be marginalized with limited access to information and knowledge, which are critical elements of sustainable development. Speakers of non-dominant languages need to be able to express themselves in culturally meaningful ways, create their own cultural content in local languages and share through cyberspace. The digital divide has two important aspects: firstly, everyone should have access to the Internet, and secondly, access to quality content created not only at international or regional level, but locally and in local languages. The Internet is multilingual and culturally diverse where every culture and language has its own space.

Relevance to Internet Governance: The Multilingual Internet seeks to support sustainable processes of awareness raising about the need for multilingualism in Cyberspace, understanding access to information as a Human Right for indigenous groups, knowledge sharing of best practices for local languages in cyberspace and capacity building for communities especially with endangered languages. It is needed to strengthen the right for access to information in Internet for indigenous communities and will stimulate communities of native languages. Linguistic and the Cultural Diversity intends to contribute to define principles and actions to foster a culturally diverse cyberspace that are specific to the region. Language diversity ensuring that the riches of culture that diversity represents will be preserved for all countries and for the world. The cultural issue of languages on the Internet serves as a counter to the perceived concentration of issues surrounding the information society on ICTs and their impact.