Instant Messaging crosses the language barrier

12Planet and Worldlingo have launched a multilingual instant message (IM) software which allows users to exchange messages in ten different languages.

The software works in almost real-time with an IM client talking directly with Worldlingo's multilingual server. It also features a conferencing facility and an option to talk directly with a human interpreter should the message get muddled.

Phil Scanlan, CEO of Worldlingo, admitted that machine translation will not replace human translation but it can be used for short and simple queries. He said: "Machine translation is ideal for customer service or simple information query but it is unlikely to replace real translators in the near future."

The software allows instant translations to take place across the internet in English, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.

Web statistics company Vilaweb recently released figures which showed English is still the dominant language of the internet - 68 per cent of web content is in English followed by Japanese (5.9 per cent) and German (5.8 per cent).