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I discovered this in 2018, when comparing lists of languages supported by different software and the number of speakers. https://peterburk.github.io/i2018n/#wi

I discovered this in 2018, when comparing lists of languages supported by different software and the number of speakers. https://peterburk.github.io/i2018n/#wikipedia https://peterburk.github.io/i2018n/#wikipedia Having machine-translated content is powerful for SEO, but I don't know how practical that is for Cebuano. It would be nice for English to no longer be practically required for people to become computer literate.

airstrike 7y ago
> It would be nice for English to no longer be practically required for people to become computer literate. In turn, you'll get "every other language becomes practically required for people to be able to communicate about computers"
- FalconSensei 7y ago
  Yes. In the end, we need one common language so that we can communicate with people around the globe, and that's not only about computers, but everything.
BiteCode_dev 7y ago
> It would be nice for English to no longer be practically required for people to become computer literate. French here. We are terrible at english in my country. Still, the fact most information in computing is shared in english is a god send. Sure, you have to learn it, but then: - no need to search for it in so many languages - no need to produce translations of tutorials/docs/comments in so many languages - the community to share and communicated with is huge and diverse - english is way more efficient than french, spanish, german or chinese to talk about technical stuff
- seventh-chord 7y ago
  Genuinely curious about your last point (don't know much about the topic). Is english intrinsically better at this, or is it because of the presence of jargon? Is it a studied phenomena, or is it something most people feel?
  - reaperducer 7y ago
    I can see that being true. Many of the web sites I build are multi-lingual, and when designing for many languages, you have to take into consideration that certain languages take many more characters or words to express an idea than in English. Off the top of my head, I believe we factor in 15% more text space for Spanish. German is something like 60% more.
    - kevingadd 7y ago
      When localizing software also it's a general rule of thumb that your on-screen UI spaces need to be something like 40% bigger than the English text that goes in them since the German equivalent is always going to be way bigger. It's common for it to turn out half-way through localization that some of your text doesn't fit anymore. (FWIW, this also happens when swapping from ideographic languages to English - western localizations of Japanese video games often end up with very small text as a result.)
  - airstrike 7y ago
    English has an incredibly simple grammar, comparatively speaking. There are only three verb conjugations (if you don't count auxiliary verbs) and one gender. Even naming variables is easier!
  - FalconSensei 7y ago
    In my opinion, jargon helps, but English is just easier to learn and shorter to communicate. My first language is Portuguese, and English was not so hard for me to learn. I studied a bit of French and it was ok, but not as easy as English. And this considering it should be a bit easier since Portuguese is my main language. Now I'm studying German and... it's way harder than English and French. At least, way more verbose and which more complex grammar rules and conjugations.
  - BiteCode_dev 7y ago
    English is usually shorter than other latin-based languages. It's longer than ideogram based ones but you don't have to learn 100000 symbols to express yourself in it. It also has a very simple grammar compared to most languages. Take this sentence: "I would like not to go to school today" The french equivalent would be: "Je voudrais ne pas aller à l'école aujourd'hui." "would like" is a simple combination of two words, but in french you need to know the precise conjugation of it. "not" is actually expressed as 2 words with "ne pas", which can be positioned in several ways. Infinitive, like with "to go", is simple in english: just add "to". In french, each verb is different, like "aller". Then you got "the" in any circumstances in english, but the "l'", could also be "le, la, or les" depending of the word after it. A;so remember that each word is either feminine or masculine in french, even a stone or the sun. Then "à" and "école" got an accent. French has many of them, you need to know the right one, where to place it, how to pronunciation it and type it on the keyboard. Finally, "today" vs "aujourd'hui". I know which one is easier to type in a bug report. Not to say English doesn't have weird traps, but it's very, very relaxing compared to the rest. And much more efficient. Also describing a view of the country side with it feels a bit limiting. But I'm not Shakespear :)
- touristtam 7y ago
  > english is way more efficient than french, spanish, german or chinese to talk about technical stuff That's your opinion or do you have supporting research to link to?
FanaHOVA 7y ago
> It would be nice for English to no longer be practically required for people to become computer literate. That's already case in other mission critical industries, like aviation. Hard to build businesses with cross-border collaboration without using English. (This is also how I learned English in the first place, it was a good motivator!)

airstrike 7y ago

> It would be nice for English to no longer be practically required for people to become computer literate. In turn, you'll get "every other language becomes practically required for people to be able to communicate about computers"

FalconSensei 7y ago
Yes. In the end, we need one common language so that we can communicate with people around the globe, and that's not only about computers, but everything.

BiteCode_dev 7y ago

> It would be nice for English to no longer be practically required for people to become computer literate. French here. We are terrible at english in my country. Still, the fact most information in computing is shared in english is a god send. Sure, you have to learn it, but then: - no need to search for it in so many languages - no need to produce translations of tutorials/docs/comments in so many languages - the community to share and communicated with is huge and diverse - english is way more efficient than french, spanish, german or chinese to talk about technical stuff

seventh-chord 7y ago
Genuinely curious about your last point (don't know much about the topic). Is english intrinsically better at this, or is it because of the presence of jargon? Is it a studied phenomena, or is it something most people feel?
- reaperducer 7y ago
  I can see that being true. Many of the web sites I build are multi-lingual, and when designing for many languages, you have to take into consideration that certain languages take many more characters or words to express an idea than in English. Off the top of my head, I believe we factor in 15% more text space for Spanish. German is something like 60% more.
  - kevingadd 7y ago
    When localizing software also it's a general rule of thumb that your on-screen UI spaces need to be something like 40% bigger than the English text that goes in them since the German equivalent is always going to be way bigger. It's common for it to turn out half-way through localization that some of your text doesn't fit anymore. (FWIW, this also happens when swapping from ideographic languages to English - western localizations of Japanese video games often end up with very small text as a result.)
- airstrike 7y ago
  English has an incredibly simple grammar, comparatively speaking. There are only three verb conjugations (if you don't count auxiliary verbs) and one gender. Even naming variables is easier!
- FalconSensei 7y ago
  In my opinion, jargon helps, but English is just easier to learn and shorter to communicate. My first language is Portuguese, and English was not so hard for me to learn. I studied a bit of French and it was ok, but not as easy as English. And this considering it should be a bit easier since Portuguese is my main language. Now I'm studying German and... it's way harder than English and French. At least, way more verbose and which more complex grammar rules and conjugations.
- BiteCode_dev 7y ago
  English is usually shorter than other latin-based languages. It's longer than ideogram based ones but you don't have to learn 100000 symbols to express yourself in it. It also has a very simple grammar compared to most languages. Take this sentence: "I would like not to go to school today" The french equivalent would be: "Je voudrais ne pas aller à l'école aujourd'hui." "would like" is a simple combination of two words, but in french you need to know the precise conjugation of it. "not" is actually expressed as 2 words with "ne pas", which can be positioned in several ways. Infinitive, like with "to go", is simple in english: just add "to". In french, each verb is different, like "aller". Then you got "the" in any circumstances in english, but the "l'", could also be "le, la, or les" depending of the word after it. A;so remember that each word is either feminine or masculine in french, even a stone or the sun. Then "à" and "école" got an accent. French has many of them, you need to know the right one, where to place it, how to pronunciation it and type it on the keyboard. Finally, "today" vs "aujourd'hui". I know which one is easier to type in a bug report. Not to say English doesn't have weird traps, but it's very, very relaxing compared to the rest. And much more efficient. Also describing a view of the country side with it feels a bit limiting. But I'm not Shakespear :)
touristtam 7y ago
> english is way more efficient than french, spanish, german or chinese to talk about technical stuff That's your opinion or do you have supporting research to link to?

FanaHOVA 7y ago

> It would be nice for English to no longer be practically required for people to become computer literate. That's already case in other mission critical industries, like aviation. Hard to build businesses with cross-border collaboration without using English. (This is also how I learned English in the first place, it was a good motivator!)