English in computing
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The English language is sometimes described as the lingua franca of computing. In comparison to other sciences, where Latin and Greek are the principal sources of vocabulary, Computer Science borrows more extensively from English. Due to the technical limitations of early computers, and the lack of international standards on the Internet, computer users were limited to using English and the Latin alphabet. However, this historical limitation is less present today. Most software products are localized in numerous languages and the use of the Unicode character encoding has resolved problems with non-Latin alphabets. Some limitations have only been changed recently, such as with domain names, which previously allowed only ASCII characters.
Contents
1 Influence on other languages
1.1 Bulgarian
1.2 Faroese
1.3 French
1.4 German
1.5 Icelandic
1.6 Polish
1.7 Russian
1.8 Spanish
2 Character encoding
3 Programming language
4 Communication protocols
5 Localization
5.1 BIOS
5.2 Keyboard shortcut
6 English on the World Wide Web
6.1 English speakers
6.1.1 Native speakers
6.1.2 As a foreign language
6.2 World Wide Web content
7 Notes
Influence on other languages
The computing terminology of many languages borrows from English. Some language communities resist actively to that trend, and in other cases English is used extensively and more directly. This section gives some examples for the use of English terminology in other languages, and also mentions any notable differences.
Bulgarian
Both English and Russian have influence over Bulgarian computing vocabulary. However, in many cases the borrowed terminology is translated, and not transcribed phonetically. Combined with the use of Cyrillic this can make it...
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