The Internet is a prime example of how ICT affects patterns of language use. These changes can have a number of far-ranging social, economic and other effects so public language policies may provide useful responses to these new challenges and opportunities.

On the one hand, the Internet seems to reinforce global trends of linguistic standardization. On the other hand, it may also support the maintenance of local minority languages particularly in situations, where access to national spheres of communication is restricted and conventional resources for storing multilingual information are scarce. Little empirical data on these phenomena which would allow one to assess the multifaceted effects of ICT on the globalisation and/or localisation of languages is however currently available.

The issue “Multilingualism on the Internet” that is online available at http://www.unesco.org/shs/ijms aims at contributing to original socio-linguistic research about the linguistic impacts of the Internet and at filling this knowledge gap.

The research, carried out under the coordination of Sue Wright (Aston University, UK), attempts to break new ground by collecting and analyzing empirical data on patterns of language use on the Internet in the African, Arab, Asian and European region.