e and help them put up dictionaries.
For these people, the web is an affordable boon for cultural
expression."

The 6,700 languages of our planet are catalogued in "The
Ethnologue: Languages of the World", an encyclopedia published
by SIL International (SIL: Summer Institute of Linguistics).
Barbara Grimes was the editor of the 8th to 14th editions,
1971-2000. She wrote in January 2000: "The Ethnologue is a
catalog of the languages of the world, with information about
where they are spoken, an estimate of the number of speakers,
what language family they are in, alternate names, names of
dialects, other socio-linguistic and demographic information,
dates of published Bibles, a name index, a language family
index, and language maps." The Ethnologue is freely available
on the web. The print version and CD-ROM can be bought online.

= Minority languages

Caoimhin O Donnaile teaches computing - through the Gaelic
language - at the Institute Sabhal Mor Ostaig, located on the
Island of Skye, in Scotland. He also maintains the bilingual
(English, Gaelic) college website, which is the main site
worldwide with information on Scottish Gaelic, as well as the
webpage European Minority Languages, a list of minority
languages by alphabetic order and by language family. He wrote
in May 2001: "There has been a great expansion in the use of
information technology in our college. Far more computers, more
computing staff, flat screens. Students do everything by
computer, use Gaelic spell-checking, and a Gaelic online
terminology database. There are more hits on our website. There
is more use of sound. Gaelic radio (both Scottish and Irish) is
now available continuously worldwide via the internet. A major
project has been the translation of the Opera web browser into
Gaelic - the first software of this size available in Gaelic."

What about the internet and endangered languages? "I would
emphasize the point that as regards the future of endangered
languages, the internet speeds everything up. If people don't
care about preserving languages, the internet and accompanying
globalisation will greatly speed their demise. If people do
care about preserving them, the internet will be a tremendous
help."

Guy Antoine is the founder of Windows on Haiti, a reference
website about Haitian culture. He wrote in November 1999: "In
Windows on Haiti, the primary language of the site is English,
but one will equally find a center of lively disc