COMPUTING AND THE HUMANITIES

Multilingual Web Links Language Resources at NYU and around the World

Johannes Paul Lang and Jordan Jurow

ACF's Multilingual Web is by now one of the most comprehensive multilingual sites available on the World-Wide Web. It contains a host of articles, links to software and hardware, as well as online newspapers, magazines, newsgroups, and language-learning resources. The scope and diversity of the site mean that it can serve as an instructional tool for foreign-language students and teachers, and as an informational database for all who want to employ the power of multilingual computing.

ACF Multilingual Web was started in mid-June 1996; since then, the staff of the ACF Innovation Center has been following almost every link related to multilingual computing, from Internet machines in Singapore to hosts in Iceland. The thousands of links and resources available through the Multilingual Web are broken down into six main sections and fifteen specific language sections. Despite the large volume, these links remain easy to access thanks to the organization of a frame-based interface which divides the Netscape browser into separate but interrelated windows.

The main page features information of general interest which lets you know what's available through the site. It has the following six sections:

What's New notes any recent additions to the site.
Technical Issues in Multilingual Computing provides articles, tutorials, and links related to technical issues in multilingual computing. Examples show you how to integrate multilingual features into everyday computing environments as well as into complex or shared systems.
Software and Hardware Tools for Multilingual Computing covers tools available worldwide.
General Resources for Multilingual Computing covers a wide range of multilingual databases, institutions, and type foundries available online worldwide.
Multilingual Computing Resources at ACF describes multilingual software and hardware you can currently use at NYU's ACF.
Multilingual Guestbook allows you to add your links, thoughts, and suggestions and shows who has visited the site lately.

In addition to these sections, you can access Multilingual Web's resources via clickable individual languages. Eventually ACF Multilingual Web will feature Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish.

Each individual language section offers you several link categories -- the Russian language section, for example, lets you choose between

Technical issues in Russian-language computing
Russian hardware and software
Russian language learning resources
Russian academic resources
News and media in the Russian language
Miscellaneous Russian resources
Just for fun
Russian ACF resources

In keeping with the collaborative spirit that gave rise to ACF's Multilingual Web, users are encouraged to contribute to the collection of articles, resources, and links. The staff will incorporate your suggestions into the pages, so that Multilingual Web continues to evolve and expand. [ C ]

Johannes Paul Lang is on the ACF Innovation Center staff. Jordan Jurow is a Connect staff member.
ic@nyu.edu

Posted 26 September 1996