to create royalty-free translating dictionaries through the help of the Internet's citizens. This site allows individuals from all over the world to visit and assist in the translation of English words into other languages. The resulting lists of English words and their translated counterparts are then made available through this site to anyone, with no restrictions on their use. […]

The Internet Dictionary Project began in 1995 in an effort to provide a noticeably lacking resource to the Internet community and to computing in general — free translating dictionaries. Not only is it helpful to the on-line community to have access to dictionary searches at their fingertips via the World Wide Web, it also sponsors the growth of computer software which can benefit from such dictionaries — from translating programs to spelling-checkers to language-education guides and more. By facilitating the creation of these dictionaries on-line by thousands of anonymous volunteers all over the Internet, and by providing the results free-of-charge to anyone, the Internet Dictionary Project hopes to leave its mark on the Internet and to inspire others to create projects which will benefit more than a corporation's gross income."

Tyler Chambers answered my questions in his e-mail of 14 September 1998.

ML: "How do you see multilingualism on the Web?"

TC: "Multilingualism on the Web was inevitable even before the medium 'took off', so to speak. 1994 was the year I was really introduced to the Web, which was a little while after its christening but long before it was mainstream. That was also the year I began my first multilingual Web project, and there was already a significant number of language-related resources on-line. This was back before Netscape even existed — Mosaic was almost the only Web browser, and web pages were little more than hyperlinked text documents. As browsers and users mature, I don't think there will be any currently spoken language that won't have a niche on the Web, from Native American languages to Middle Eastern dialects, as well as a plethora of 'dead' languages that will have a chance to find a new audience with scholars and others alike on-line. To my knowledge, there are very few language types which are not currently on-line: browsers currently have the capability to display Roman characters, Asian languages, the Cyrillic alphabet, Greek, Turkish, and more. Accent Software has a product called 'Internet with an Accent' which claims to be able to display over 30 different language encodings. If there are currently any barriers to any particular language being on the Web, they won't last long."

ML: "What did the use of the Internet bring to your professional life?"

TC: "My professional life is currently completely separate from my Internet life. Professionally, I'm a computer programmer/techie — I find it challenging and it pays the bills. On-line, my work has been with making language information available to more people through a couple of my Web-based projects. While I'm not multilingual, nor even bilingual, myself, I see an importance to language and multilingualism that I see in very few other areas. The Internet has allowed me to reach millions of people and help them find what they're looking for, something I'm glad to do. It has also made me somewhat of a celebrity, or at least a familiar name in certain circles — I just found out that one of my Web projects had a short mention in Time Magazine's Asia and International issues. Overall, I think that the Web has been great for language awareness and cultural issues — where else can you randomly browse for 20 minutes and run across three or more different languages with information you might potentially want to know? Communications mediums make the world smaller by bringing people closer together; I think that the Web is the first (of mail, telegraph, telephone, radio, TV) to really cross national and cultural borders for the average person. Israel isn't thousands of miles away anymore, it's a few clicks away — our world may now be small enough to fit inside a computer screen."

ML: "How do you see the future of Internet-related activities as regards languages?"

TC: "As I've said before, I think that the future of the Internet is even more multilingualism and cross-cultural exploration and understanding than we've already seen. But the Internet will only be the medium by which this information is carried; like the paper on which a book is written, the Internet itself adds very little to the content of information, but adds tremendously to its value in its ability to communicate that information. To say that the Internet is spurring multilingualism is a bit of a misconception, in my opinion — it is communication that is spurring multilingualism and cross-cultural exchange, the Internet is only the latest mode of communication which has made its way down to the (more-or-less) common person. The Internet has a long way to go before being ubiquitous around the world, but it, or some related progeny, likely will. Language will become even more important than it already is when the entire planet can communicate with everyone else (via the Web, chat, games, e-mail, and whatever future applications haven't even been invented yet), but I don't know if this will lead to stronger language ties, or a consolidation of languages until only a few, or even just one remain. One thing I think is certain is that the Internet will forever be a record of our diversity, including language diversity, even if that diversity fades away. And that's one of the things I love about the Internet — it's a global model of the saying 'it's not really gone as long as someone remembers it'. And people do remember."

Since its inception in 1989, the CTI (Computer in Teaching Initiative) Centre for Modern Languages has been based in the Language Institute at the University of Hull, United Kingdom, and aims to promote and encourage the use of computers in language learning and teaching. The Centre provides information on how computer assisted language learning (CALL) can be effectively integrated into existing courses and offers support for language lecturers who are using, or who wish to use, computers in their teaching.

June Thompson, Manager of the Centre, answered my questions in his e-mail of
December 14, 1998.

ML: "How do you see multilingualism on the Internet?"

JT: "The Internet has the potential to increase the use of foreign languages, and our organisation certainly opposed any trend towards the dominance of English as the language of the Internet. An interesting paper on this topic was delivered by Madanmohan Rao at the WorldCALL conference in Melbourne, July 1998." [See details of the forthcoming conference book]

ML: "What did the use of the Internet bring to the life of your organization?"

JT: "The use of the Internet has brought an enormous new dimension to our work of supporting language teachers in their use of technology in teaching."

ML: "How do you see the future of Internet-related activities as regards languages?"

JT: "I suspect that for some time to come, the use of Internet-related activities for languages will continue to develop alongside other technology-related activities (e.g. use of CD-ROMs - not all institutions have enough networked hardware). In the future I can envisage use of Internet playing a much larger part, but only if such activities are pedagogy-driven. Our organisation is closely associated with the WELL project [Web Enhanced Language Learning] which devotes itself to these issues."

Hosted by the CTI Centre for Modern Languages and the University of Hull (United Kingdom), EUROCALL is the European Association for Computer Assisted Language Learning. This association of language teaching