The dominance of the English language on the web is weakening, according to research by Funredes.
20 years ago, the vast majority (80%) of online content was written in English. Ten years later, this had fallen to 45%, and the research suggests this figure is still falling.
The reason for this shift appears to be the fact that more non-English speakers are coming online and producing content.
20 years ago, 80% of internet users were native English speakers – now it is more like 25%.
The rise of other languages is being touted as a good thing by some commentators. As more non-English speakers create online content, more non-English speakers are encouraged to come online to read it – a spiral of ever increasing linguistic diversity.
The study revealed that Russian, German and Japanese are the next most popular online languages after English, with each accounting for around 5-6% of online content.Â
