Linguistics of the Internet

A startling phenomenon is occurring in the digital world. According to Statista data, over 52% of the internet is in English, and just under 85 percent is in 10 languages. This may not seem like too big of a deal - but a deeper look at the languages that make up that top 10 reveals a much more ominous story. Absent are some of the world's most spoken languages - Chinese, Hindi, and Arabic are just a few major ones that don’t make the list and forget about any regional language being anywhere close to relevance. So what does this all mean? People are being forced to use these more common languages when dealing with the internet, and with how much of our world runs on the internet now, not being able to use one of these prominent languages essentially ostracizes one from most of the technological advancements of our time. So, what is the solution? As with almost everything these days, it might be AI. Translation technology can already translate languages, but accuracy is still an issue. However, as AI improves and more training data is supplied, a future where AI can seamlessly translate content accurately into any language may not be far.

This could lead to some very interesting developments in how we use and learn language. Would we never learn new languages, instead simply relying on AI to translate everything? Would people speak different languages rather than a single state language, and would AI translate everything into the user's preferred language? How would this affect the creation of new words and slang? Would accents be preserved or filtered out by AI through translation? In preserving smaller languages, would we actually do more harm than good?