THE OBSERVATORY OF THE

Linguistic and
Cultural Diversity
in the Internet

Learn About Our Research
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The Observatory of the Linguistic and Cultural Diversity in the Internet (OBDILCI) is a non-profit organization that researches the presences of languages and cultures online. Since 1998, we have developed methodologies to conduct this research, which have evolved to keep up with the changes in the Internet. Our work is peer-reviewed and we are the only organization dedicated solely to this work, and as such, our data is the most reliable and in-depth.

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Our Projects

  • Indicators for the Presence of Languages in the Internet
  • The Languages of France in the Internet
  • French in the Internet
  • Portuguese in the Internet
  • Spanish in the Internet
  • AI and Multilingualism
  • DILINET
  • and more…
View Main Project
View Other Projects

Peer-Reviewed Publications

Our most important work is peer-reviewed, published in scientific journals, and often presented at research conferences worldwide.

See List of Publications

Funding and Partners

Second Period (Since 2017)

Funders: Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie, Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs via Instituto Internacional da LĂ­ngua Portuguesa, DĂ©lĂ©gation gĂ©nĂ©rale Ă  la langue française et aux langues de France du Ministère de la culture, Permanent delegation of Brazil in UNESCO

Partner: UNESCO Chair on Language Policies for Multilingualism

First Period (1998-2017)

Funders: Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie, Union Latine, UNESCO and DĂ©lĂ©gation gĂ©nĂ©rale Ă  la langue française et aux langues de France du Ministère de la culture, 

Partners: Union Latine and MAAYA

Read More About Our Funding & Partners

Did You Know?

  • As of May 2023, only 20% of Web content in the Internet is in English (not 50% or more!)
  • 19% is in Chinese
  • 7.8% is in Spanish
  • 3.5% is in Arabic, Hindi , Russian, French or Portuguese
View the Study

* Sources : Ethnologue, ITU & a large collection of sources consultable in : https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frma.2023.1149347/full#supplementary-material

** Confidence interval ±20%

Latest Blog

  • New page: English@Web
    New page: English@Web: an historical bias You are surprised to discover OBDILCI announcing values for the percentage of English in the Web around 20%? You have read everywhere that English represents more than 50%…
    Continue reading…

Often Cited,
Often Referenced

Our work has often been cited in research publications and even integrated into art exhibitions.

See OBDILCI in the Media