The

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the ...

is sometimes described as the ''

lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...

'' of computing. In comparison to other sciences, where

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

and

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

are often the principal sources of vocabulary,

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

borrows more extensively from English. In the past, due to the technical limitations of early computers, and the lack of international standardization on the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, p ...

, computer users were limited to using English and the Latin alphabet. However, this historical limitation is less present today, due to innovations in internet infrastructure and increases in computer speed. Most software products are localized in numerous languages and the invention of the

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, ...

character encoding has resolved problems with non-Latin alphabets. Some limitations have only been changed recently, such as with

domain name A domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority or control within the Internet. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services and more. As ...

s, which previously allowed only

ASCII ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because ...

characters. English is seen as having this role due to the prominence of the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

and the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

, both

English-speaking countries The following is a list of English-speaking population by country, including information on both native speakers and second-language speakers. List * The European Union is a supranational union composed of 27 member states. The total E ...

, in the development and popularization of computer systems,

computer network A computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. The computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections are ...

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consist ...

and

information technology Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information technology syste ...

History

Computer Science has an ultimately mathematical foundation which was laid by non-English speaking cultures. The first mathematically literate societies in the Ancient Near East recorded methods for solving mathematical problems in steps, The word 'algorithm' comes from the name of a famous medieval Arabic mathematician who contributed to the spread of

Hindu-Arabic numerals Arabic numerals are the ten numerical digits: , , , , , , , , and . They are the most commonly used symbols to write decimal numbers. They are also used for writing numbers in other systems such as octal, and for writing identifiers such as ...

, al-Khwārizmī, and the first systematic treatment of binary numbers was completed by

Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm (von) Leibniz . ( – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat. He is one of the most prominent figures in both the history of philosophy and the history of ma ...

, a German mathematician. Leibniz wrote his treatise on the topic in French, the lingua franca of science at the time, and innovations in what is now called

Computer hardware Computer hardware includes the physical parts of a computer, such as the case, central processing unit (CPU), random access memory (RAM), monitor, mouse, keyboard, computer data storage, graphics card, sound card, speakers and motherboard. ...

occurred outside of an English tradition, with Pascal inventing the first mechanical calculator, and Leibniz improving it. Interest in building computing machines first emerged in the 19th century, with the coming of the

Second Industrial Revolution The Second Industrial Revolution, also known as the Technological Revolution, was a phase of rapid scientific discovery, standardization, mass production and industrialization from the late 19th century into the early 20th century. The ...

. The origins of Computing in an English tradition began in this era with

Charles Babbage Charles Babbage (; 26 December 1791 – 18 October 1871) was an English polymath. A mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer, Babbage originated the concept of a digital programmable computer. Babbage is considered ...

's conceptualization of the

Difference Difference, The Difference, Differences or Differently may refer to: Music * ''Difference'' (album), by Dreamtale, 2005 * ''Differently'' (album), by Cassie Davis, 2009 ** "Differently" (song), by Cassie Davis, 2009 * ''The Difference'' (al ...

and

Analytical Engine The Analytical Engine was a proposed mechanical general-purpose computer designed by English mathematician and computer pioneer Charles Babbage. It was first described in 1837 as the successor to Babbage's difference engine, which was a desig ...

George Boole George Boole (; 2 November 1815 – 8 December 1864) was a largely self-taught English mathematician, philosopher, and logician, most of whose short career was spent as the first professor of mathematics at Queen's College, Cork in ...

's work on logic, and

Herman Hollerith Herman Hollerith (February 29, 1860 – November 17, 1929) was a German-American statistician, inventor, and businessman who developed an electromechanical tabulating machine for punched cards to assist in summarizing information and, later, i ...

's invention of the tabulating machine for specific use in the

1890 United States census The United States census of 1890 was taken beginning June 2, 1890, but most of the 1890 census materials were destroyed in 1921 when a building caught fire and in the subsequent disposal of the remaining damaged records. It determined the reside ...

. At the time, Britain enjoyed near complete hegemonic power in the West at the height of the ''

Pax Britannica ''Pax Britannica'' (Latin for "British Peace", modelled after '' Pax Romana'') was the period of relative peace between the great powers during which the British Empire became the global hegemonic power and adopted the role of a "global poli ...

'', and America was experiencing an economic and demographic boom. By the time of the interwar period in the early 20th century, the most important mathematics related to the development of computing were being done in English, which was also beginning to become the new lingua franca of science.

Influence on other languages

The computing terminology of many languages borrows from English. Some language communities actively resist this trend, and in other cases English is used extensively and more directly. This section gives some examples of the use of English loans in other languages and mentions any notable differences.

Bulgarian

Both English and Russian have had influence over Bulgarian computing vocabulary. However, in many cases the borrowed terminology is translated, and not transcribed phonetically. Combined with the use of

Cyrillic The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking co ...

this can make it difficult to recognize loanwords. For example, the Bulgarian term for

motherboard A motherboard (also called mainboard, main circuit board, mb, mboard, backplane board, base board, system board, logic board (only in Apple computers) or mobo) is the main printed circuit board (PCB) in general-purpose computers and other expand ...

is ' bg, дънна платка' (IPA or literally "bottom board"). * – computer * – hard disk * –

floppy disk A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, or a diskette) is an obsolescent type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined ...

; like the French disquette * – (phonetic) web site; but also "" – internet page

Faroese

The

Faroese language Faroese ( ; ''føroyskt mál'' ) is a North Germanic language spoken as a first language by about 72,000 Faroe Islanders, around 53,000 of whom reside on the Faroe Islands and 23,000 in other areas, mainly Denmark. It is one of five languages de ...

has a sparse scientific vocabulary ''based on the language itself''. Many Faroese scientific words are borrowed and/or modified versions of especially Nordic and English equivalents. The vocabulary is constantly evolving and thus new words often die out, and only a few survive and become widely used. Examples of successful words include e.g. "telda" (computer), "kurla" (at sign) and "ambætari" (server).

French

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

, there are some generally accepted English loanwords, but there is also a distinct effort to avoid them. In France, the

Académie française An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosop ...

is responsible for the standardisation of the language and often coins new technological terms. Some of them are accepted in practice, but oftentimes the English loans remain predominant. In Quebec, the

Office québécois de la langue française The (, OQLF; en, Quebec Board of the French Language) is a public organization established on 24 March 1961, by the Liberal government of Jean Lesage. Attached to the , its initial mission, defined in its report of 1 April 1964, was "to align ...

has a similar function. * ''email/mail'' (in Europe); ''courriel'' (mainly in

French-speaking Canada Francophone Canadians (or French-speaking Canadians) are citizens of Canada who speak French. In 2011, 9,809,155 people in Canada, or 30.1% of the population, were Francophone, including 7,274,090 people, or 22% of the population, who declared th ...

, but increasingly used in French-speaking Europe); ''mél.'' (only used as an abbreviation, similar to "tél."); more formally ''courrier électronique'' * ''pourriel'' – spam * ''hameçonnage'', phishing – phishing * ''télécharger'' – to download * ''site web'' – website * ''lien'', ''hyperlien'' – website hyper-link * ''base de données'' – database * ''caméra web'', ''webcaméra'', short ''webcam'' – webcam * ''amorcer'', ''démarrer'', ''booter'' – to boot * ''redémarrer'', ''rebooter'' – to reboot * ''arrêter'', ''éteindre'' – to shut down * ''amorçable'', ''bootable'' – bootable * ''surfréquençage'', ''surcadençage'', overclocking – overclocking * ''refroidissement à l'eau'' – watercooling * ''tuning PC'' –

case modding Case modification, commonly referred to as case modding, is the modification of a computer case or a video game console chassis. Modifying a computer case in any non-standard way is considered a case mod. Modding is done, particularly by hardwar ...

German

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

, English words are very often used as well: * nouns: Computer, Website, Software, E-Mail, Blog * verbs: downloaden, booten, crashen

Japanese

Japanese uses the

katakana is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji and in some cases the Latin script (known as rōmaji). The word ''katakana'' means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana characters are derived f ...

alphabet for foreign loanwords, a wide variety of which are in use today. English computing terms remain prevalent in modern Japanese vocabulary. * コンピューター (''konpyūtā'') -

computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations ( computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs. These prog ...

* コーダー (''kōdā'') -

coder A computer programmer, sometimes referred to as a software developer, a software engineer, a programmer or a coder, is a person who creates computer programs — often for larger computer software. A programmer is someone who writes/creates ...

* コーデック (''kōdekku'') -

codec A codec is a device or computer program that encodes or decodes a data stream or signal. ''Codec'' is a portmanteau of coder/decoder. In electronic communications, an endec is a device that acts as both an encoder and a decoder on a signal or ...

* ダウンロード (''daunrōdo'') -

download In computer networks, download means to ''receive'' data from a remote system, typically a server such as a web server, an FTP server, an email server, or other similar system. This contrasts with uploading, where data is ''sent to'' a remote ...

* リンク (''rinku'') - link Utilizing a

keyboard Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Mu ...

layout suitable for

romanization of Japanese The romanization of Japanese is the use of Latin script to write the Japanese language. This method of writing is sometimes referred to in Japanese as . Japanese is normally written in a combination of logographic characters borrowed from Ch ...

, a user may type in the

Latin script The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern ...

in order to display Japanese, inclusive of

hiragana is a Japanese syllabary, part of the Japanese writing system, along with ''katakana'' as well as ''kanji''. It is a phonetic lettering system. The word ''hiragana'' literally means "flowing" or "simple" kana ("simple" originally as contras ...

, and

Japanese kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are still used, along with the subseque ...

Usually when writing in Japanese on a computer keyboard, the text is input in roman transcription, optionally according to Hepburn,
Kunrei is the Cabinet-ordered romanization system for transcribing the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet. Its name is rendered ''Kunreisiki rômazi'' in the system itself. Kunrei-shiki is sometimes known as the Monbushō system in English b ...
, or Nippon romanization; the common Japanese word processing programs allow for all three. Long vowels are input according to how they are written in kana; for example, a long ''o'' is input as ''ou'', instead of an ''o'' with a circumflex or macron (''ô'' or ''ō''). As letters are keyed in, they are automatically converted, as specified, into either hiragana or katakana. And these kana phrases are in turn converted, as desired, into kanji.

Icelandic

The

Icelandic language Icelandic (; is, íslenska, link=no ) is a North Germanic language spoken by about 314,000 people, the vast majority of whom live in Iceland, where it is the national language. Due to being a West Scandinavian language, it is most closely re ...

has its own vocabulary of scientific terms. Still, English loans exist, and are mostly used in casual conversation, whereas the Icelandic words might be longer or not as widespread.

Norwegian

It's quite common to use English words with regards to computing in all Scandinavian languages. nouns: mail (referring to e-mail), software, (from "blog"), spam verbs: å boote, å spamme, å blogge

Polish

Polish terminology derived from English: * '' dżojstik'':

joystick A joystick, sometimes called a flight stick, is an input device consisting of a stick that pivots on a base and reports its angle or direction to the device it is controlling. A joystick, also known as the control column, is the principal cont ...

* '' kartrydż, kartridż'':

cartridge Cartridge may refer to: Objects * Cartridge (firearms), a type of modern ammunition * ROM cartridge, a removable component in an electronic device * Cartridge (respirator), a type of filter used in respirators Other uses * Cartridge (surname), a ...

* '' interfejs'':

interface Interface or interfacing may refer to: Academic journals * ''Interface'' (journal), by the Electrochemical Society * '' Interface, Journal of Applied Linguistics'', now merged with ''ITL International Journal of Applied Linguistics'' * '' Int ...

* '' mejl'':

e-mail Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic (digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...

Russian

History of computer hardware in Eastern Bloc countries The history of computing hardware in the Eastern Bloc is somewhat different from that of the Western world. As a result of the CoCom embargo, computers could not be imported on a large scale from Western Bloc. Eastern Bloc manufacturers created ...

* Computer Russification

Spanish

The English influence on the software industry and the internet in Latin America has borrowed significantly from the Castilian lexicon. ;Frequently untranslated, and their Spanish equivalent *email: ''correo electrónico'' *mouse (only in Latin America): ''ratón'' (mainly in Spain) *messenger: ''mensajero'' (only in Spain) *webcam: ''cámara web'', ''webcam'' *website: ''página web, sitio web'' *blog: ''bitácora'', ''blog'' *ban/banned: ''baneado'' (Latin America), ''vetar, vetado'' *web: ''red'', ''web'' ;Not translated *flog ;Undecided Many computing terms in Spanish share a common root with their English counterpart. In these cases, both terms are understood, but the Spanish is preferred for formal use: *link vs ''enlace'' or ''vínculo'' *net vs ''red''

Character encoding

Early computer software and hardware had very little support for character sets other than the Latin alphabet. As a result, it was difficult or impossible to represent languages based on other scripts. The

character encoding, created in the 1960s, usually only supported 128 different characters in a 7 bit format. With the use of additional software it was possible to provide support for some languages, for instance those based on the Cyrillic alphabet. However, complex-script and

logographic In a written language, a logogram, logograph, or lexigraph is a written character that represents a word or morpheme. Chinese characters (pronounced '' hanzi'' in Mandarin, '' kanji'' in Japanese, '' hanja'' in Korean) are generally logograms ...

languages like Chinese or Japanese need more characters than the 256 limit imposed by 8-bit character encodings. Some computers created in the former

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nati ...

had native support for the Cyrillic alphabet. The widespread adoption of

, and

UTF-8 UTF-8 is a variable-length character encoding used for electronic communication. Defined by the Unicode Standard, the name is derived from ''Unicode'' (or ''Universal Coded Character Set'') ''Transformation Format 8-bit''. UTF-8 is capable of e ...

on the web, resolved most of these historical limitations. ASCII remains the de facto standard for command interpreters,

programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language. The description of a programming ...

s and text-based communication protocols, but it is slowly dying out. *

Mojibake Mojibake ( ja, 文字化け; , "character transformation") is the garbled text that is the result of text being decoded using an unintended character encoding. The result is a systematic replacement of symbols with completely unrelated ones, oft ...

– Text presented as "unreadable" when software fails due to character encoding issues.

Programming language

The syntax of most programming languages uses English keywords, and therefore it could be argued some knowledge of English is required in order to use them. Some studies have shown that programmers nonnative to English self-report that English is their biggest obstacle to programming proficiency. However, it is important to recognize all

programming languages A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language. The description of a programming ...

are in the class of

formal languages In logic, mathematics, computer science, and linguistics, a formal language consists of words whose letters are taken from an alphabet and are well-formed according to a specific set of rules. The alphabet of a formal language consists of sy ...

. They are very different from any natural language, including English. Some examples of non-English programming languages: *

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

: ARLOGO, قلب *

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

: BangaBhasha * Chinese: Chinese BASIC *

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

: Superlogo *

: LSE, WinDev, Pascal (although the English version is more widespread) *

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

: Hebrew Programming Language * Icelandic:

Fjölnir Fjölnir ( non, Fjǫlnir ) is a legendary king in Norse mythology said to have been the son of Freyr (Frey) and his consort Gerðr (Gertha). The name appears in a variety of forms, including Fiolnir, Fjölner, Fjolner, and Fjolne. He was claim ...

* Indian Languages: Hindawi Programming System * Russian: Glagol * Portuguese: Portugol

Communication protocols

Many application protocols use text strings for requests and parameters, rather than the binary values commonly used in lower layer protocols. The request strings are generally based on English words, although in some cases the strings are contractions or acronyms of English expressions, which can render them somewhat cryptic to anyone not familiar with the protocol, whatever their proficiency in English. Nevertheless, the use of word-like strings is a convenient mnemonic device that allows a person skilled in the art (and with sufficient knowledge of English) to execute the protocol manually from a keyboard, usually for the purpose of finding a problem with the service. Examples: * FTP: USER, PASS (password), PASV (passive), PORT, RETR (retrieve), STOR (store), QUIT *

SMTP The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is an Internet standard communication protocol for electronic mail transmission. Mail servers and other message transfer agents use SMTP to send and receive mail messages. User-level email clients ty ...

: HELO (hello), MAIL, RCPT (recipient), DATA, QUIT *

HTTP The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide We ...

: GET, PUT, POST, HEAD (headers), DELETE, TRACE, OPTIONS It is notable that response codes, that is, the strings sent back by the recipient of a request, are typically numeric: for instance, in HTTP (and some borrowed by other protocols) * 200 OK request succeeded * 301 Moved Permanently to redirect the request to a new address * 404 Not Found the requested page does not exist This is because response codes also need to convey unambiguous information, but can have various nuances that the requester may optionally use to vary its subsequent actions. To convey all such "sub-codes" with alphabetic words would be unwieldy, and negate the advantage of using pseudo-English words. Since responses are usually generated by software they do not need to be mnemonic. Numeric codes are also more easily analyzed and categorized when they are processed by software, instead of a human testing the protocol by manual input.

Localization

BIOS

Many personal computers have a

BIOS In computing, BIOS (, ; Basic Input/Output System, also known as the System BIOS, ROM BIOS, BIOS ROM or PC BIOS) is firmware used to provide runtime services for operating systems and programs and to perform hardware initialization during the b ...

chip, displaying text in English during boot time.

Keyboard shortcut

Keyboard shortcut computing, a keyboard shortcut also known as hotkey is a series of one or several keys to quickly invoke a software program or perform a preprogrammed action. This action may be part of the standard functionality of the operating system or ...

s are usually defined in terms of English keywords such as CTRL+F for find.

English on the World Wide Web

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

is the largest language on the

World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet. Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web ...

, with 27% of internet users.

English speakers

Web user percentages usually focus on raw comparisons of the first language of those who access the web. Just as important is a consideration of second- and foreign-language users; i.e., the first language of a user does not necessarily reflect which language he or she regularly employs when using the web.

Native speakers

English-language users appear to be a plurality of web users, consistently cited as around one-third of the overall (near one billion). This reflects the relative affluence of English-speaking countries and high Internet penetration rates in them. This lead may be eroding due mainly to a rapid increase of Chinese users. First-language users among other relatively affluent countries appear generally stable, the two largest being German and Japanese, which each have between 5% and 10% of the overall share.

World Wide Web content

One widely quoted figure for the amount of

web content Web content is the text, visual or audio content that is made available online and user encountered as part of the online usage and experience on websites. It may include text, images, sounds and audio, online videos, among other items placed wi ...

in English is 80%. Other sources show figures five to fifteen points lower, though still well over 50%. There are two notable facts about these percentages: The English web content is greater than the number of first-language English users by as much as 2 to 1. Given the enormous lead it already enjoys and its increasing use as a ''lingua franca'' in other spheres, English web content may continue to dominate even as English first-language Internet users decline. This is a classic

positive feedback loop Positive feedback (exacerbating feedback, self-reinforcing feedback) is a process that occurs in a feedback loop which exacerbates the effects of a small disturbance. That is, the effects of a perturbation on a system include an increase in the ...

: new Internet users find it helpful to learn English and employ it online, thus reinforcing the language's prestige and forcing subsequent new users to learn English as well. Certain other factors (some predating the medium's appearance) have propelled English into a majority web-content position. Most notable in this regard is the tendency for researchers and professionals to publish in English to ensure maximum exposure. The largest database of medical bibliographical information, for example, shows English was the majority language choice for the past forty years and its share has continually increased over the same period.Language and country preponderance trends in MEDLINE and its causes
/ref> The fact that non-Anglophones regularly publish in English only reinforces the language's dominance. English has a rich technical vocabulary (largely because native and non-native speakers alike use it to communicate technical ideas) and many IT and technical professionals use English regardless of country of origin (

Linus Torvalds Linus Benedict Torvalds ( , ; born 28 December 1969) is a Finnish software engineer who is the creator and, historically, the lead developer of the Linux kernel, used by Linux distributions and other operating systems such as Android. He also ...

, for instance, comments his code in English, despite being from Finland and having Swedish as his first language).

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:English in computing English language Computing and society Internet culture Natural language and computing English as a global language