ultilingual. As
an example, a non-profit organization created by the Government of Quebec, the
Centre d'expertise et de veille Inforoutes et Langues (CEVEIL) (Centre of
Expertise and Awareness for Information Highways and Languages) is setting up,
in a more specifically French-oriented approach, an expertise network and some
awareness-raising activities on the language problems of information highways.

Guy Bertrand, scientific director of CEVEIL, and Cynthia Delisle, consultant,
answered my questions in their e-mail of August 23, 1998.

ML: "How do you see multilingualism on the Web?"

CEVEIL: "Multilingualism on the Internet is the logical and natural consequence
of the diversity of human populations. Because the Web has first been developed
and used in the United States, it is not really surprising that this medium
began by being essentially Anglophone (and still is at present). However this
situation is beginning to change and this movement will go on expanding, both
because most of the new network users will not have English as a mother tongue
and because the [non-English] communities already present on the Web will no
longer accept the hegemony of the English language and will want to use the
Internet in their own language, at least partially.

We can plan that, in several years, we'll have a situation similar to the one in
publishing regarding the representation of different languages. This means than
only a small number of languages will be in use (compared to the several
thousands which exist). In this perspective, we believe that the Web -- among
other parties -- should seek to further support minority cultures and languages,
particularly for dispersed communities.

Finally, the arrival on the Internet of languages other than English, while
requiring true readjustments and providing undeniable enrichment, points out the
need for linguistic processing tools capable of effectively managing this
situation. These will emerge as the result of research studies and awareness
activities in areas such as machine translation, standardization, information
location, automatic condensation (summaries), etc."

ML: "What did the use of the Internet bring to the life of CEVEIL?"

CEVEIL: "Let us first mention that the existence of the Web is one of the
grounds of existence of CEVEIL, as we concentrate our activities mainly around
the set of themes of the language use and processing on the Internet.

Moreover the Web is o