Language barriers

Olaf Brugman writes an interesting article on languagebarriers in the flow of knowledge. Taking two examples as mini-cases, the language zones at KnowledgeBoard and the huge translation effort at the EU to accomodate for now 12 and soon 24 languages.

In my comment to his posting I try to point out that centralized solutions to the language divide in my view won't work. Not adopting one language, and not going for the huge amount of work of having one centralized hub doing all the translation. Mechanical translation might offer a solution in the future, but not at the moment. I'd go for a decentralized way of looking at it.

So it's up to individuals to create a solution. To connect networks you need connectors, networkstraddlers. Through them knowledge and information can flow between two otherwise seperated networks. So would it be possible to identify and reinforce those Connectors? They would not need to be omniglot or even polyglot, just one or perhaps two foreign language skills would suffice.
These connectors would be able to mesh the different language-networks, and we can even work out mathematically how much meshing would be needed to make it robust.

Of course this would not result in immediate translation of texts into all languages. It would however result in ideas being transmitted throughout the whole system. When enough interest is generated within a certain circle (tipping point like) this subset of people will arrange for translation, on the basis of perceived needs. Once translated a document has become a more 'spreadable meme' and will travel through the system once more.

As I blog in three different languages I can use myself to reflect upon.
I did not start my multilingual blog to cross barriers. I started it to build three geographically different networks. That means that I only sporadically write the same entries in two or three of my blogs. Of course, ideas do get crossfertilized. When writing about the development of the knowledge economy in the Netherlands I do take into account what I know from english sources, and when I write about blogging in the workplace in German I do use previous articles in English and Dutch. So translation is not a goal in itself, and that is how it should be. The perceived need to communicate is the driving force here, and maybe we could deliberately boost that by working on the connectors between language networks.

Also see Blogalization where an active attempt is made to lower language thresholds for bloggers.

(UPDATE: Jeff Jarvis reflects some more on connections between different language blogs.)