n their language being given a fair
position in the world, and receiving the same consideration given to other main
languages of communication, such as English, Arabic, Chinese or Spanish. Just as
for any other non-English language-based culture, the French wish to stand up
for their own language as well as for multilingualism and the diversity of
people and culture.

At present it is important for any language to be represented through websites
in its own language, with the possibility for Internet surfers to study it in a
dynamic way through self-taught programs, language dictionaries, or linguistic
databases. For example, in France, the Institut national de la langue francaise
(INaLF) (National Institute of the French Language) created its site in December
1997 to present its research programs on the French language, particularly its
lexicon. The INaLF's constantly expanded and renewed data, processed by specific
and original computing systems, deal with all the aspects of the French
language: literary discourse (14th-20th centuries), standard language (written
and spoken), scientific and technical language (terminologies), and regional
languages.

In her e-mail response of June 8, 1998, Christiane Jadelot, an engineer at
INaLF-Nancy, France, explained:

"At the request of Robert Martin, the Head of INaLF, our first pages were posted
on the Internet by mid-1996. I participated in the creation of these web pages
with tools that cannot be compared to the ones we have nowadays. I was working
with tools on UNIX, which were not very easy to use. At this time, we had little
experience in this field, and the pages were very wordy. But the managing team
was thinking it was urgent for us to be known through the Internet, a tool many
enterprises were already using to promote their products. As we are a Department
of Research and Services (Unite de recherche et de service), we have to find
clients for our computer products, the best known being the textual database
FRANTEXT. I think FRANTEXT was already on the Internet [since early 1995], and
there was also a prototype of the volume 14 of the TLF [Tresor de la langue
francaise (Treasure of the French Language), by Jean Nicot, 1606]. Therefore it
was necessary for INaLF activities to be known by this means. It corresponded to
a general need."

Every non-English language community is working for its language to be
represented on the Web and for the international Internet to be m