5.7.5 Multi-Language Support
Kanon will be issued in multiple languages and support online language diversity. So, the determination of which language is supported ahead of others will be subject to SynesisDAO’s governance vote. To illustrate the importance of this point, approximately 6,500 known languages are spoken by humans on this planet but only a fraction of them are widely spoken and used online.
A considerable gap exists among languages used online and in the real world. For example, Mandarin is the most widely spoken language with 1.3 billion native speakers, but accounts for only 1.7% of websites. Similarly, there are 442 million Spanish language speakers but only 5% of websites are in Spanish. According to Statistica, 54% of the top 10 million websites are in English. The dominance of a handful of languages online has led scientists to warn that this lack of diversity will lead to the disappearance of languages around the world.[i]
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[i] McCarthy, Niall, and Felix Richter. “Infographic: Two Worlds: Languages IRL and Online.” Statista Infographics, February 21, 2019. https://www.statista.com/chart/14900/two-worlds_-languages-irl-and-online/. On efforts to save the world’s disappearing languages, see Strochlic, N. The Race to Save the World’s Disappearing Languages May 3, 2021. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/saving-dying-disappearing-languages-wikitongues-culture
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