IGF 2010
VILNIUS, LITHUANIA
16 SEPTEMBER 10
SESSION D.C. 1
1130
ICANN
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Note: The following is the output of the real-time captioning taken during Fifth Meeting of the IGF, in Vilnius. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the session, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> VIOLA KREBS: Good morning. And welcome to the session of the Dynamic Coalition for Linguistic Diversity.
My name is Viola Krebs and I represent here the Maaya Network for Linguistic Diversity and also ICVolunteers. I will be the moderator of this session. This session, because it deals with linguistic diversity, it will be a multilingual session. We do not have multilingual session. We do not have interpretation, but I would like to invite you to feel free to speak your own language especially if one of your languages is French or English, of course maybe with Arabic, we will have a little bit more of a challenge unless you want to do the translation yourself. The purpose, really, of the Dynamic Coalition can you see the oh, okay, sorry. We are having some technical challenges here.
Yeah, the aim of the Dynamic Coalition is to look at the main issues related to linguistic diversity on the Internet. And this coalition is coordinated by the World Network for Linguistic Diversity. Maybe in the second part of this session, we can hear a little bit about what it means and what Maaya is all about. But before that, I would like to just review very quickly the aim of the coalition and then some of the main issues that have been discussed during our previous meetings. And I would like to invite the various members of the coalition here present to give their point of view of what has happened within the past, let's say, one or two years as far as linguistic diversity cyberspace is concerned, what are the progresses that have been made and what are the main issues or challenges at hand? We have to look at. And also integrate in the statement that will be coming out of this session as a result.
So, in terms of the aim of the Dynamic Coalition, it is to consider progress made in the field of linguistic diversity since the last IGF, to learn about news from the coalition members, to review our priorities for linguistic diversity in cyberspace and to prepare a document of recommendations.
So, in terms of ... here in the room who might be able to add some additional points to this list.
One major issue seems to be measuring linguistic diversity in cyberspace. And statistics related to the measuring.
A second issue and I think there a lot of progress has been made are IDNs, International Domain Names.
The third issue, scripts and their standards. What standards do we follow? And who decides what standard should be followed?
Another issue which often has been maybe marginalized in some ways a bit too much is the fact that without content generators and creators, we don't have linguistic diversity. And that especially minority languages oftentimes do not have enough writers or participants in cyberspace, and therefore are not very present or not present at all on the net.
The promotion of digital literacy is very much connected to the previous point.
And, last, but not least, there is the question of search engines. How do search engines capture languages which are not in a script that is easily searched for?
In terms of penetration and users and contents, these figures are not revolutionary. In fact, they date from 2008, because one of the big issues precisely is that the measuring of linguistic diversity is such a challenge with the immense growth of the Net. So the latest figures which were given by Funredes, Daniel present here in the room, but I'll go through them very, very quickly. We can say that for Africa, we have about 4 percent of users of the world with a penetration rate of only 5 percent. Europe, 27 of the global users with a penetration of about 48 percent. And if we look at the split of languages, we would have 30 percent English, 17 percent Chinese, 9 percent Spanish, 7 percent Japanese, 5 percent French and 5 percent German. As for split by language, there is no single source, and there are different figures for English.
I would add to this, also, that probably the 17 percent Chinese most likely have evolved. Daniel, do you want to give the latest figures? (speaking in French).
(speaking in non English language).
>> Viola Krebs: Question to the room. Is there anyone that does not understand French? Okay. All right. Yeah, great. So you can, in fact, follow on the screen.
>> (off mic).
>> Viola Krebs: Okay. Well Daniel Pimienta gave the latest updates as far as the statistics are concerned. He pointed out that about the Chinese figure is likely to have evolved quite a bit. And English penetration is about 40 percent, but also that as far as search engines are concerned, nowadays we're getting to a point where English is favored very much again as far as the contents is concerned.
So if we consider the figures, I'm going to go a bit quickly here because I would like to get to the discussion, but about 40,000 different languages have existed. And there are about 6,000 that are still in use nowadays. We have only about 350 in digital formats. And the ultimate goal for universal access to telecommunication services is to allow citizens to communicate and access information and knowledge in their language.
So the question really is how do we get from 6,000 to maybe 3,500 represented in cyberspace?
So, studies by Funredes and Language Observatory Project have pointed out have indicated that in UK, we have about 0.4 percent of users, 0.5, Africa 0.3 and 80 percent of them 80 percent of them in South Africa, which means for a whole continent, the penetration is very, very low. And France and English patrons in France represent about 0.7 percent.
So if I go to this quickly, I would say again back to the issues, the measuring linguistic diversity, how do we measure it and what are the issues we are faced with?
Second, International Domain Names, a lot of progress has been made, but what are the remaining issues?
Third, the scripts and their standards. So we have UTF8 as a standard, but there has been a lot of debate of what kind of scripts to use for certain languages. I could give, for example, the case of Kumir, where a certain standard was adopted, but some of the linguists would argue that in fact it's not the right script that was adopted and it leaves out a whole cultural dimension of what should have been taken into account. So how do we best deal with issues like this?
And also, how do we connect scripts with keyboards and ways to write the scripts?
And then, of course, contents generation, creative comments initiative and public domain information, what is at stake there?
And promoting digital literacy, Funredes studies have shown that initially there was a link between the growth of users and content in a given language; however, over time, less content is produced proportionally to the number of users signing on. New users have more like act more like consumers than producers. And the missing link is probably digital literacy, which includes awareness raising of users to the importance of contents production.
And, last, but not least, the issue that was mentioned by Daniel earlier, which is: How do we deal with search engines? And what is it we can recommend as a coalition in this area?
I would like to suggest in terms of the format of this session to pass the mic to Daniel Pimienta, and then also to other speakers who have been quite involved in the Dynamic Coalition; and among them is Louis Pouzin. And URlink. And if Chartal would like to add to the discussion. And of course Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie. And maybe also Divina from the perspective of more the academic side of things.
So, what I would like to suggest is that this should be quite an interactive discussion where we can add to the recommendation is we would like to get out of this room. Daniel.
>> Daniel: (speaking in non English language)
>> VIOLA KREBS: Merci. Oui, Jean Paul?
>> Jean Paul: (speaking in non English language)
>> VIOLA KREBS: Pierre? (speaking in non English language)
>> Pierre: (speaking in non English language)
>> VIOLA KREBS: Merci? Chantal?
>> (speaking in non English language)
>> VIOLA KREBS: Do we have anyone who knows Russian and would like to yes? Did you follow what Chantal just mentioned about scripts and IDNs and the fact that oftentimes, if we're looking at the hardware, meaning a keyboard, and how we deal with the keyboard, say, in Arabic, where in one instance, for, say, English, we go from one side, from left to right, and for Arabic, it's from right to left. And how technically we deal with this.
So for Russian, there might be other issues? And maybe you would like to say something about this.
>> Yes. If possible, I will speak in English for everyone to understand.
>> VIOLA KREBS: Please.
>> Because I don't think that everyone could understand Russian or other language. Of multilingual Russian Federation.
It is a great honour for me to be there on the Dynamic Coalition for Linguistic Diversity, and I would like to mention that I am collaborating with the Russian committee of the UNESCO information for all programme, and the international library corporation center which developed one of the important documents for the linguistic diversity for the Internet in cyberspace the resolution of 2008, in which all of the principals prescribed in this document.
You can download it from the UNESCO web site from the Web site of the information follow programme.
I would like to say that the multilingualism is a cornerstone of the problems related with information accessibility for multilingual nations of Russian Federation. Because they have more than 40 official languages in Russia as well we could forget about languages of indigenous peoples living at the north and the east part of Russian Federation. That's why that conference of 2008 of the linguistic diversity take place in the eastern northern part of Russia in the there is a lot of indigenous peoples and a lot of languages of them. The problem is to represent them in cyberspace, which differs to develop the software to implement the specific symbols of languages of those people to image them in the Web pages. That's the first problem.
The second problem is the problem of information literacy. Information literacy is very important issue because of some of people speaking not some, but majority of people speaking these languages are not involved in cyberspace because of the absence of the information literature knowledge.
The third problem is cultural heritage on the languages of those indigenous peoples minorities. How to preserve, how to save it, how to translate it to the other languages, how to make it possible to read them, to understand for people who doesn't speak these small languages.
But since 2008, by common and joint work for the UNESCO, UNESCO Information for All programme, all other friends and organizations, we have a big level of progress in providing linguistic diversity in cyberspace in Russia. So all the relevant information could be also found in the reports of the Russian IGF committee web site the other representative meetings of the IFF related structures. Thank you very much. That's what I would like to say.
>> VIOLA KREBS: Thank you very much. Many of us present know each other. But I would like to ask those who take the floor to introduce themselves very briefly with name and affiliation. I saw a hand here and then Divina.
>> This is for my difficult pronunciation of the surname. Andres Serbush, Russian Federation, I graduated Russian faculty of economics faculty of law. Also I'm in collaboration with the library cooperation center.
>> VIOLA KREBS: Thank you.
>> (Speaking in non English language.)
>> Is an organisation founding of the party acknowledged by the United Nation and we have been present at several conferences at the UNESCO and also we took part to the conference on multilingua I had a small speech in that occasion. And we were promoting, since 1998, with the Italian government. At the time it was Romano Prodi government about adoption by UNESCO of International Observatory on Linguistic Diversity. This, then, was passed inside the Resolution on Multilingualism outside the space of the UNESCO. And it has been finally made real.
(Speaking in non English language.)
>> VIOLA KREBS: Merci Beaucoup. For our non French speaking participants, very briefly a summary. There are two major issues, one more political, the other one related to the economy. Italy is a good example of what should not happen in terms of the domination of English that is taking over schools and where, in fact, subjects that are nonlinguistic are being taught in English. And also the question around maybe the role Italy has had historically as far as Fascism is concerned and being a role model for good things but also very bad things. And so the specific proposal made here as far as the observatory and on behalf of the observatory for linguistic diversity in Italy, which now has seen its realisation, is to push for and to recommend that there should be a world summit for linguistic diversity to tackle the issues related to languages but much more than just languages, in fact the democracy and right of people to express themselves and have access to cyberspace. So it's a technological issue, but not only. And it goes way beyond just the technological issue.
So it's a question of mobilizing various entities, such as the European Union, UNESCO and the United Nations to think about these questions on push forward the idea to really address them. I hope I didn't forget anything important.
>> (Speaking in non English language.)
>> VIOLA KREBS: So, as far as the presence of French in public schools in Italy is concerned, it's proposed that the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie should complain officially to the government of Italy about this latest development and the fact that French is though longer no longer present in schools. And while it was the dominant, the first prominent foreign language not so long ago, now it is completely being marginalized.
Divina?
>> Divina: In responding to that,
(Speaking in non English language.)
>> VIOLA KREBS:
(Speaking in non English language.)
>> (Speaking in non English language.)
>> VIOLA KREBS: Thank you, Divina. I will, before giving the floor to the more Arabic perspective, I will try to summarize this very rich presentation. Well, first point is that France will unfortunately not be of any help and assistance with regards to the preservation of French because in French schools, English has become the dominant language, as well. And in Paris, there is only one high school that currently offers Spanish as the first foreign language. It's very much about information culture, and the fact that there needs to be a culture of information, something that represents also the needs of people, because currently, for example, health may be one of the major issues that is in contents area for people as well as maybe employment, housing and rights.
So that the consumer and the consumption of the Net is really what obliges us to shift in terms of mindset and the fact that it's about creative industries and have cultural goods on the Internet and indigenous goods, as well.
Divina then talked about the difference between the creative industries and metallage and mettallage, the fact that there are big corporations that in the past had all the land, and individuals who were giving their time for this land. And she made a comparison with the Internet and what's going on with the Internet, saying that nowadays, there are, again, big corporations; but, in fact, the individuals are not only giving their time, they're giving everything, meaning that the cultural creativity and all their knowledge. But they're not getting anything in return. And so, in a way, it's not encouraging developing countries to really participate in this way actively, that Google only reimburses $100 if you get to that level. And so, really, the creative industries should be of interest to the politicians.
And also it's about the governance of cultures and language as a vector of cultures.
>> (Speaking in non English language.)
>> VIOLA KREBS: mentioned a specific idea around IDNs and not anything related to his language, which is Arabic. IDN is really, he agrees that the question of IDNs is really a superficial one in some ways because it is still necessary to pass from unicode to translate to ASCII and back to unicode. And as long as unicode is the only way to as long as ASCII is the only way to transcribe and deal with IDNs, it remains really very superficial. Yeah, basically I think that was your main point.
We talked a little bit about Africa. And I'm looking to my right for both maybe a Senegalese perspective and also maybe with central Africa, I don't know if you would like to say anything about how maybe Wolof and other languages spoken in Senegal are represented in cyberspace and what the issues are at stake?
>> Merci. (Speaking in non English language.)
(audio was lost).
>> VIOLA KREBS: Also about 80 percent of the population do not speak French and so it's a question of how do we connect the needs of the people? And (Speaking in non English language.)
(Internet connection lost. Some English may not be transcribed.)
(Speaking in non English language.)
>> VIOLA KREBS: Well, question of languages is very, very crucial for a country like the republic, the democratic Republic of Congo with about 350 ethnicities and more than 1,000 and how in all of this can we preserve local languages, what is the place of local languages. What languages do we use to express ourselves in the future? I'm looking at time. And I think this has been very rich debate. They're approaching closure of this session. And I would like to know if we have any remote participants who would like to add some comments to the discussion.
>> Serbia. Language issue. Although I'm not into the field that much as from everyday experience, I can say that English is also dominant English in Serbia. Unfortunately, I don't know French. So I haven't I wasn't remote moderator. We have been followed from Armenia and several individuals around Europe. Just one question. From Armenia, but I think we actually covered that. Particularly about scripts. The usage for scripts, not languages exactly. That was the question.
>> And have we lost the transcription? Apparently not, no. All right. First before on his left, maybe I don't know if, Daniel, you have any statistics about the scripts. No? Does anybody else know of statistics with regard to scripts used in cyberspace? Okay. So maybe, in fact, this is very much an open issue that would need to be looked at in how to capture statistics on it. Pierre?
>> Pierre: Merci. (Speaking in non English language.)
>> VIOLA KREBS: Merci, bien. Well, with regards to the situation of Italy, and the positioning of francophone with regards to an official complaint, maybe, well, it seems that this is a bit delicate because Italy is not a member of Frank oh phone and therefore has not signed the charter that takes as a basis a certain number of principles agreed among the members of Francophone.
We have not agreed to supporting French, and therefore, well, you know, it's not of interest to us. But as far as the debate is concerned, many things have been said and the conference held in linguistic diversity in cyberspace which was supported by Francophone, which was one of the milestones where many points were raised and issues raised and that may be a point that can be taken as a basis as the text, also. And the fact that maybe also Francophone and UNESCO can be further working on questions of linguistic diversity and the arrival of ambassador from Lithuania, who now is at UNESCO might well be a good catalyst for such dialogue and such cooperation.
Other points mentioned would be the contents and also mechanisms as far as Francophone is concerned with its full Francophone and and issues around search engines that were mentioned here, issues also around libraries, online libraries, and certain economies.
I saw another hand over there. And then Daniel. Okay. And after that, I think we have to wrap up this session. Please.
>> (Speaking in non English language.)
>> VIOLA KREBS: Well, search engines are not representing what's out there, that's true. But what's the solution, then? Well, should we adopt the solution given by China? Or do we have to innovate and find some other solution?
And also, why do we experience this migration towards English? Wouldn't it be that countries where English and French are present should be or individuals in these countries should be encouraged to produce in French if, you know, English and French are not their native tongue? And, after all, it would be about diversity and the promotion of diverse contents and contents in French, in particular. As given as an example related also to Tunisia, where certainly this question is present like in all the other countries we have talked about. I apologize, I forgot, someone, who? You wanted to take the floor earlier.
>> Hello. I will do this in English because I can do it faster. I know we are short on time. One of the things that Tajani mentions is I think a diversification of the use of language in the sense that English is becoming a tool, a universal tool for commerce in a way that no language has ever been before. But it's not necessarily identifier. You don't feel in English. You may feel in your local language. And so what we may end up seeing on the Web is two sides of your personality, one which is primarily functional and is about your economic development opportunities, and the other one that is who you are. And in places like in Africa where French may be the third language that you speak, English might be the fourth language that you speak, you'll need to learn English so you can make enough money to feed your family, but you may end up leaving behind two of the others and finding the second language is the one you speak at your house.
>> VIOLA KREBS: Thank you. And just maybe your name and affiliation?
>> Andrew Mack from AM Global in Washington.
>> VIOLA KREBS: Daniel?
>> DANIEL PIMIENTA: (Speaking in non English language.)
I will speak English to show that I have no problem with English and to get time also synthesis. I will first answer you about the search engine proposition. Excellent for French oriented search engines have been developed with state funds, which is working fine.
I will agree with you there are today those who need to have as much content in English and Spanish if so in French and Spanish and English. When I have to make research, which is something I need, I in Spanish because I am living in Latin America, then I go to French and then I go to English. I don't think we have to have complex. Today, the main language has the content. The question is literacy. Just not Google. Many people are so much into Google that they don't even know that there is a place on the browser to put a link. They go to Google to put their link. It's incredible.
IDN, I agree with what you said. But there is an IDN phenomenon we can use. I think IDN is the tip of the iceberg. It's really solving linguistic diversity by a smart part. But it has provoked something that people are now facing the other problems of linguistic diversity. One of the effects of IDN is everybody now is talking about linguistic diversity, which does not change the number of people in the room, which is a problem. Maybe we have some marketing issues to solve ourselves, because everybody is saying something about linguistic diversity without knowing where is the problem. I'm talking about the main room. So maybe we have the marketing situation here from this group to try to take these people with us and explain to them.
I totally agree with you that the lack of the existence of nonvirtual like linguistic policy is paramount. It's the most important. And it has very strong effect, positive or negative. Positive, let's take the example of Catalonia, where linguistic policy has made language revised and exist. And if you have nonvirtual linguistic policy, you cannot also have virtual language policy. And change. One of the paradox is that Italy and other countries are now getting into English and English and at the same time, the British council published three years ago British. I forgot the name of the author. Saying to young English men and women in England: Be very careful. You live inure open with Italian, French who spec not only French and Italian but English. So you have to be multilingual.
So the big paradox is that when Anglophone people are starting to understand that being monolingual in English is not a value, other countries are going the other way, which is very strange. But it's a paradox.
And I am really finished now. I think the idea of summit for linguistic diversity exists. It is by Mr. and I think it is becoming a very important matter. So people understand it is not just a question of technicity but democracy as you have said. I don't want to say more because other people want to talk.
>> VIOLA KREBS: Thank you, Daniel. I saw two more hands, one over here and then closing one by Divina.
>> My name is and I come from Sir Arthur Lewis Community College on the Caribbean island of St. Lucia. I have a question to begin with and then I have something else to say. I wonder if I am the only person in this room who is first language mother tongue English. No? It seems there are three of us. I think I would recommend that it would be good if there could be a few more if you want to convert your enemy, you need to bring them into the argument.
I agree with you. Daniel will tell you something you said in the Dominican Republic that nearly crashed the conference in June.
In my country, our concern is not with French or with Spanish. We speak English. That is our official language. We study French and Spanish at school. But we have a native language called Creole. Our Prime Minister now deceased some years ago who said the computer can't speak Creole. He's wrong. It can. And also in the media, if you are interviewed, you speak the language you are most comfortable with. And if it is Creole, there is no translation. It is expected that you will understand.
So my recommendation is: Please include a few more English speakers and let's try to work it out to work it out together.
>> VIOLA KREBS: Seems like a very good proposal. That was made earlier, or a piece of paper given to me by our participant from Russia, Andre, which I'm sure I mispronounced your name, I'm sorry. It is an observation with regards to a Lima resolution of 2008 and whether anyone here is familiar with this resolution. I don't know if you would like to say a couple of words about it.
>> Andre: I think that some of them are the authors of this resolution sitting here in this room. That's not me. I just would like to recommend this document to which is about the problem of linguistic diversity.
>> VIOLA KREBS: Thank you. We have taken note of it. And, Divina?
>> DIVINA: I just wanted to add a paradox to the one Daniel was mentioning, when we did research in Europe about the uses of the Internet, all eight countries that were surveyed showed that 95 percent of kids go to Google first except in England. In England, only 45 percent go to Google first because they have media literacy from school, from scratch. And so they are taught to use other search engines. So it's a way to try to find a way out, to see what other positive actions that may be in this group we could push forward and definitely media and information literacy is one for consumption and for production, definitely. But it's slow. Governments are not moving fast on it. And right now, it's be pushed a little bit by the EU and a few governments because it is a liberal doctrine. If you're going to let total deregulation, then you'd better say that the end user is responsible and should be trained.
So it is taken in this logic. Again, what I'm trying to do with other people is put it in the logic where it's more attached to Human Rights and not just to consumption. So I would like some support here, maybe.
But I think we have to the other countries that are not English dominant countries really have to study the different alternative cases around and use them. And also do a little bit of mea culpa.
For instance, from the French perspective, I would go into the direction of Tujani that one of the things we don't do in France is put enough quality content online. At my university, the Sorbonne, which is a public university, we have a closed Internet system, a closed platform. We don't use Moodle. We don't use OERs. All my colleagues are dead set against it. And we cannot have a public debate about it.
Of course, there is intellectual property issue, et cetera. But even that is not very well perceived in France when you look at the use of creative comments. Most, something like 95 percent of creative comments in France use the most restrictive clause of use. And it's not share alike. And it's not et cetera. So it's really also what our culture thinks about content. And the French culture thinks about content as secret and as power, in a way that the English or rather the American culture doesn't think about and is more likely to allow fair use because they know that fair use creates addiction, creates familiarity and creates loyalty.
At the moment, the French paradoxically, because they are trying to protect French culture and French films, for instance, are compelling us, media educators, to use American films as examples because we know we will not be persecuted prosecuted for using American fair use images. We will be if we use French ones.
So there is something about the and I'm sure this analysis could be made of Italy and other countries, that our powers that are are not thinking proactively on how to put our content online in a desirable, attractive way, good, quality content. So the result is we send a message that is what is online and what is French is shit.
>> VIOLA KREBS: One last and closing word from our participant from Italy. Also, by the way, I'm handing around a list of participants of this session. And so please, before you leave this room, put your name and email address so we can send you the summary of the session.
>> Thank you very much. I'll speak in English to be quicker. Three spots to answer to some interventions. The first one, it's true that Italy is not inside the Francophone, it's a pity and our organisation wants to promote entrance of Italy inside the Francophone organisation. But it's not true that Italian government can say that it doesn't know the organisation because which is a region in the north of Italy is a francophone region and it's an Italian region and it is inside the Francophone organisation. And, as well, the University of Turin and the University of Ulster, Turin is one of the most biggest town in Italy, are inside the Francophone organisation. And we have a lot of Francophone organizations in Italy, like Francaise, which base is in Turin, and it's very well known and as a way to speak in the media and so on.
Second thought, it's related to the mention of our fellow Arab friend, it's true that English nation also because English has become the language of research and development, but we have to do one more step and ask ourselves: Why it has become the language of research and development? It's not become the language of research and development by a case. It's become a language of research and development because the United States and the English government push that this might occur in university in Europe in particular, all the process, which was a good process of Bolognia as intention had as a result the result that all the standards in Europe, but also the old international standards, related to classifying universities and so on as being copied by the American and the English university standards. And the main journals who publish researches in Europe or in the world that are acknowledged for research to get points, to win, to proceed in career, most of them are English or American. So it's not the result of a case.
And, finally, why shall we bother with the linguistic diversity, it has been asked. Well, because if what will happen is what we have been told, that English will become the language of commerce and of major functionality domain like work, like research and development, like also public information. What happens in Europe where you have very few information on the Web site of the European Union in other languages and most of them in English? If this happens, then you will have lost a functionality for all the other languages. And we know, because all the experts, all the linguists, UNESCO experts, say that if a language loses functionality, public functionality and becomes the language of the family, of the affection, it becomes only the language of family and affection. It goes towers becoming a dialect or even towers being endangered to disappear.
So this is the reason for which I suggested the idea of the world summit. And I am very pleased to know that others are already working on it and probably after the closure of the meeting I would like to be informed more about that. And also how to enter in this very interesting network that you represent.
>> VIOLA KREBS: Thank you very much for this nice wrapup summary, in a way. As we have heard through the different contributions and this very rich debate, the question of linguistic diversity really is not just a technical question. It is a question of how we can act: Human cultures and civilizations and technology, which is also why in many of the discussions we've had within the World Network for Linguistic Diversity and this coalition, we have seen that it is important to bring those who are not, so to speak "converted" to the issue on board, whether it's English speakers or also the link between linguists and technicians.
It seems to me actually that looking at the room here and looking at the room in the past, in some ways, we are moving in that direction. But more needs to be done in order to connect these different interests because if, really, we would like to further tackle issues around measuring linguistic diversity, around domain names and how we represent them, and of course the scripts and the technical issues, but also the promotion of the use of languages by those who may be very much not so connected to cyberspace at this point because speaking local languages, because having to find new modalities of representing languages with technologies that can capture oral communication, visual communication, cultures and the diversity related to that culture, then, of course, we need further platforms to get concerns heard. And such an initiative as a world summit on linguistic diversity, as a proposal that would be pushed forward by various stakeholders and the actors of this IGF, but also more broadly speaking the international arena around languages and around the Internet, then this would be the way forward.
Thank you very much for this very active participation. For reasons of documentation, I would very much like to ask you, for those of you who would like, to stay a few more, just one minute for a photo. And we can maybe gather, I don't know, if in this cornerback here. So thank you. And Bon Appetit. Yes, Daniel?
>> Daniel: Can I use a minute to invite you this afternoon. There is a UNESCO Forum at 4:30.
No, at 4:15 in room 6, no? And one of the items which will be discussed is linguistic diversity. I will present myself the situation of measuring linguistic diversity and the challenge to overcome. Thanks. Room 4. Thanks.
(end of session)
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