YouTube is being used as a means to get Spanish used more extensively on the Web, with the classic novel Don Quixote de la Mancha being read out in 2,149 separate segments.
The Language Of The Web
Like it or not, English is the language of the Web.
There are, obviously, other languages present, with sites in probably every other language of the world. There are also translation options for those sites not available in your mother tongue. But overall these are sidelined somewhat by English
It’s obvious why English became the standard language of the Web, with the U.K., U.S., and Australia all being big users of the Internet. But nations who have given the world other widely-used languages are keen to change this.
One is using YouTube to try and affect this change.
Don Quixote On YouTube
The Royal Spanish Academy, the official guardians of the Spanish language, has invited people from all over the world to read Miguel de Cervantes’ 1605 novel Don Quixote de la Mancha.
The classic novel contains 126 chapters and is almost 1,000 pages long, so has been divided into over 2,000 small segments to be read out in Spanish on videos that will then be posted to YouTube.
Secretary of the academy, Dario Villanueva, said:
“The Spanish language does not occupy the space that it deserves on the Internet. We want to denounce that and do something to correct it.”
Spanish speakers keen to get involved can volunteer their services via a YouTube channel set up specially for the occasion.
Conclusions
This is far from the first time YouTube has been crowdsourced, with YouTube itself recently doing so for both the YouTube Play project and the Life In A Day movie. But this is the first time it’s been done in exactly this way.
Will it be successful? I fully expect the Royal Spanish Academy to fulfill its ambition to have Don Quixote read out in Spanish on video. But its aims to get Spanish used more extensively on the Web? I doubt it very much.
[Via BBC News]
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