English in computing

The English language is sometimes described as the lingua franca of computing. In comparison to other sciences, where Latin and Greek are the principal sources of vocabulary, computer science borrows more extensively from English. Due to the technical limitations of early computers, and the lack of international standards on the Internet, computer users were limited to using English and the Latin alphabet. However, this historical limitation is less present today. Most software products are localized in numerous languages and the use of the Unicode character encoding has resolved problems with non-Latin alphabets. Some limitations have only been changed recently, such as with domain names, which previously allowed only ASCII characters.

Influence on other languages

The computing terminology of many languages borrows from English. Some language communities resist actively to that trend, and in other cases English is used extensively and more directly. This section gives some examples for the use of English terminology in other languages, and also mentions any notable differences.

Bulgarian

Both English and Russian have influence over Bulgarian computing vocabulary. However, in many cases the borrowed terminology is translated, and not transcribed phonetically. Combined with the use of Cyrillic this can make it difficult to recognize loanwords. For example, the Bulgarian term for motherboard is 'дънна платка' (IPA /danna platka/ or literally "bottom board").

Faroese

The Faroese language has a sparse scientific vocabulary based on the language itself. Many Faroese scientific words are borrowed and/or modified versions of especially Nordic and English equivalents. The vocabulary is constantly evolving and thus new words often die out, and only a few survive and become widely used. Examples of successful words include e.g. "telda" (computer), "kurla" (at sign) and "ambætari" (server).[1]

French

See also: Franglais

In French, there are some generally accepted English loan-words, but there is also a distinct effort to avoid them. In France, the Académie française is responsible for the standardisation of the language and often coins new technological terms. Some of them are accepted in practice, in other cases the English loanwords remain predominant. In Quebec, the Office québécois de la langue française has a similar function.

German

See also: Denglisch

In German, English words are very often used as well:

Icelandic

The Icelandic language has its own vocabulary of scientific terms, still English borrowings exist. English or Icelandicised words are mostly used in casual conversations, whereas the Icelandic words might be longer or not widespread.

Polish

Polish language words derived from English:

Russian

Spanish

The English influence on the software industry and the internet in Latin America has borrowed significantly from the Castilian lexicon.

Frequently untranslated, and their Spanish equivalent
Not translated
Undecided

Many computing terms in Spanish share a common root with their English counterpart. In these cases, both terms are understood, but the Spanish is preferred for formal use:

Character encoding

The early computer software and hardware had very little support for alphabets other than the Latin. As a result of this it was difficult or impossible to represent languages based on other scripts. The ASCII character encoding, created in the 1960s, only supported 128 different characters. With the use of additional software it was possible to provide support for some languages, for instance those based on the Cyrillic alphabet. However, complex-script languages like Chinese or Japanese need more characters than the 256 limit imposed by 8-bit character encodings. Some computers created in the former USSR had native support for the Cyrillic alphabet.

The wide adoption of Unicode, and UTF-8 on the web, resolved most of these historical limitations. ASCII remains the de facto standard for command interpreters, programming languages and text-based communication protocols.

Programming language

The syntax of most programming languages uses English keywords, and therefore it could be argued some knowledge of English is required in order to use them. However, it is important to recognize all programming languages are in the class of formal languages. They are very different from any natural language, including English.

Some examples of non-English programming languages:

Communication protocols

Many application protocols, especially those depending on widespread standardisation to be effective, use text strings for requests and parameters, rather than the binary values commonly used in lower layer protocols. The request strings are generally based on English words, although in some cases the strings are contractions or acronyms of English expressions, which renders them somewhat cryptic to anyone not familiar with the protocol, whatever their proficiency in English. Nevertheless, the use of word-like strings is a convenient mnemonic device that allows a person skilled in the art (and with sufficient knowledge of English) to execute the protocol manually from a keyboard, usually for the purpose of finding a problem with the service.

Examples:

It is notable that response codes, that is, the strings sent back by the recipient of a request, are typically numeric: for instance, in HTTP (and some borrowed by other protocols)

This is because response codes also need to convey unambiguous information, but can have various nuances that the requester may optionally use to vary its subsequent actions. To convey all such "sub-codes" with alphabetic words would be unwieldy, and negate the advantage of using pseudo-English words. Since responses are usually generated by software they do not need to be mnemonic. Numeric codes are also more easily analysed and categorised when they are processed by software, instead of a human testing the protocol by manual input.

Localization

BIOS

Many personal computers have a BIOS chip, displaying text in English during boot time.

Keyboard shortcut

Keyboard shortcuts are usually defined in terms of English keywords such as CTRL+F for find.

English on the World Wide Web

English is the largest language on the World Wide Web, with 27% of internet users.

English speakers

Web user percentages usually focus on raw comparisons of the first language of those who access the web. Just as important is a consideration of second- and foreign-language users; i.e., the first language of a user does not necessarily reflect which language he or she regularly employs when using the web.

Native speakers

English-language users appear to be a plurality of web users, consistently cited as around one-third of the overall (near one billion). This reflects the relative affluence of English-speaking countries and high Internet penetration rates in them. This lead may be eroding due mainly to a rapid increase of Chinese users.[4]

First-language users among other relatively affluent countries appear generally stable, the two largest being German and Japanese, which each have between 5% and 10% of the overall share.

World Wide Web content

One widely quoted figure for the amount of web content in English is 80%.[5] Other sources show figures five to fifteen points lower, though still well over 50%.[6][7][8] There are two notable facts about these percentages:

The English web content is greater than the number of first-language English users by as much as 2 to 1.

Given the enormous lead it already enjoys and its increasing use as a lingua franca in other spheres, English web content may continue to dominate even as English first-language Internet users decline. This is a classic positive feedback loop: new Internet users find it helpful to learn English and employ it online, thus reinforcing the language's prestige and forcing subsequent new users to learn English as well.

Certain other factors (some predating the medium's appearance) have propelled English into a majority web-content position. Most notable in this regard is the tendency for researchers and professionals to publish in English to ensure maximum exposure. The largest database of medical bibliographical information, for example, shows English was the majority language choice for the past forty years and its share has continually increased over the same period.[9]

The fact that non-Anglophones regularly publish in English only reinforces the language's dominance. English has a rich technical vocabulary (largely because native and non-native speakers alike use it to communicate technical ideas) and many IT and technical professionals use English regardless of country of origin (Linus Torvalds, for instance, comments his code in English, despite being from Finland and having Swedish as his first language).

Notes

  1. ↑ List of Faroese-English-Danish IT words
  2. ↑ "Questions de langue" on the Académie Française's website
  3. ↑ "dżojstik". Słownik języka polskiego. Polish Scientific Publishers PWN. Retrieved 26 September 2012.
  4. ↑ English grip on internet being eroded | Technology | Guardian Unlimited
  5. ↑ What percentage of the internet is in English?
  6. ↑ "Usage of content languages for websites". W3Techs.com. Retrieved 30 December 2011.
  7. ↑ "News". Symantec. Retrieved 31 January 2014.
  8. ↑ English could snowball on Net TRN 112101
  9. ↑ Language and country preponderance trends in MEDLINE and its causes
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