Hmmm.. as Timothy's post says:
Because the net is notoriously devoid of geographical places, the divisions are solely on the basis of interest and language...
If the net does become a force in world language development (this is yet to be seen), perhaps you should reconsider your point. All it will take for Chinese to become a world language is enough Chinese speakers getting on the net.
A second point: the figures for number of speakers of Chinese refer to how many people are native speakers of Mandarin, a northern dialect which has been used as a model for a standard language called Putonghua. In fact, virtually every Chinese citizen, except for remote border areas such as Tibet, can speak Putonghua, which puts the number of Putonghua speakers at over a billion.
Slashdot Mirror
Hmmm.. as Timothy's post says: Because the net is notoriously devoid of geographical places, the divisions are solely on the basis of interest and language... If the net does become a force in world language development (this is yet to be seen), perhaps you should reconsider your point. All it will take for Chinese to become a world language is enough Chinese speakers getting on the net. A second point: the figures for number of speakers of Chinese refer to how many people are native speakers of Mandarin, a northern dialect which has been used as a model for a standard language called Putonghua. In fact, virtually every Chinese citizen, except for remote border areas such as Tibet, can speak Putonghua, which puts the number of Putonghua speakers at over a billion.