News
A language tool in Arabic for enhanced international cooperation to be discussed at UNESCO next week
UNESCO, together with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), and the International Centre for Terminology (INFOTERM), is organizing an international expert group meeting entitled 鈥淟anguage tools for the promotion of Arabic language鈥 which will take place from 22 to 24 April 2015 at UNESCO鈥檚 Headquarters in Paris, France.
The will bring together leading experts, researchers, policymakers, Internet Governance and IT sector representatives working in the subject-area to provide their professional guidance and assistance for the validation of the 鈥淕lossary of Internet Governance terms in Arabic鈥 (IGG), a language tool developed in cooperation with the above mentioned partners. The experts will be also expected to discuss and endorse more than two hundreds terms-candidates and provide concrete recommendations for the further application of the language tool at the national and regional levels.
The empirical evidence demonstrates that some linguistic communities could have limited opportunities to be engaged in international debates, such as the debate on internet governance, if they are not supported with appropriate language tools. They are likely to face complications in formulating and articulating their position, contributing to the debate, and transmitting their messages, or even to be misunderstood by other speakers. The project 鈥淒eveloping language tools and building institutional capacities with respect to the promotion of Arabic language on the Internet and in multi-stakeholder processes鈥 initiated by UNESCO and ICANN, aims at facilitating the dialogue on the use of Arabic on the Internet, in an effective, efficient, and coordinated manner.
The overall initiatives of UNESCO on the promotion of multilingualism in cyberspace are undertaken by the , Communication and Information Sector, which is responsible as well for the realization of the concept of knowledge societies that are built on the key principles of inclusion, openness, diversity and pluralism. The Division also monitors the implementation of UNESCO鈥檚 only normative instrument in this field - the "Recommendation concerning the Promotion and Use of Multilingualism and Access to Cyberspace鈥, adopted by its General Conference in 2003.
