The internet is a huge platform that almost everyone uses for different purposes like advertising, work, socializing, entertainment, education etc. But due to it being spread all across the world there is also the matter of language barriers to deal with as the world has over 7000 languages each with its own speech and unique writing style.
But this problem is solved by the one and only language, English. English is spoken throughout the world as a first, second or third language. In the West it is the first while in the East it is spoken as a second or third language depending on the place where you live. On the internet it is the thing that links those millions of people who use the internet daily and speak different languages with each other. It is the official language of many countries and is used on many websites as well.
However, you might be thinking that nearly everybody speaks English but that is not the case as English is not spoken as much as you might think. As told by Internet World Stats only about 1.5 billion people in the world speak English as per estimates. Out of these 1.5 billion people only 1.2 are internet users so that means 25.9 people on the internet can't understand the majority of websites without the help of translation apps or tools available on the internet.
According to stats some Eastern languages like Chinese, Spanish and Arabic are shown to have less representation on the internet rather than the real world. The chart also showed that languages like English and Russian have a larger reach than in the real world.
The stats are that 63.7 websites use English but only 25.9% of people speak it. The same is with Russian as 6.8 websites use it while only 2.5 speak the language. While these two languages are overrepresented on the internet, languages like Chinese (19.4% speakers and 1.3% websites), French (2.5% websites, 3.3% speakers), Portuguese (0.7% websites with 3.7% users) are also somewhat popular.
People are now beginning to question this and are demanding equality in the languages that are used in websites so they can have a better representation on the internet. To sum it up, English is not as widely spoken contrary to popular belief.
Read next: Apple's Safari is on the verge of losing its second place as the most used web browser on desktops
But this problem is solved by the one and only language, English. English is spoken throughout the world as a first, second or third language. In the West it is the first while in the East it is spoken as a second or third language depending on the place where you live. On the internet it is the thing that links those millions of people who use the internet daily and speak different languages with each other. It is the official language of many countries and is used on many websites as well.
However, you might be thinking that nearly everybody speaks English but that is not the case as English is not spoken as much as you might think. As told by Internet World Stats only about 1.5 billion people in the world speak English as per estimates. Out of these 1.5 billion people only 1.2 are internet users so that means 25.9 people on the internet can't understand the majority of websites without the help of translation apps or tools available on the internet.
According to stats some Eastern languages like Chinese, Spanish and Arabic are shown to have less representation on the internet rather than the real world. The chart also showed that languages like English and Russian have a larger reach than in the real world.
The stats are that 63.7 websites use English but only 25.9% of people speak it. The same is with Russian as 6.8 websites use it while only 2.5 speak the language. While these two languages are overrepresented on the internet, languages like Chinese (19.4% speakers and 1.3% websites), French (2.5% websites, 3.3% speakers), Portuguese (0.7% websites with 3.7% users) are also somewhat popular.
People are now beginning to question this and are demanding equality in the languages that are used in websites so they can have a better representation on the internet. To sum it up, English is not as widely spoken contrary to popular belief.
Read next: Apple's Safari is on the verge of losing its second place as the most used web browser on desktops