English to be replaced by Chinese as most popular language on internet

Wednesday, 5 January 2011 00:01 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Washington (ANI): English is currently the most popular language on the internet, but its era of dominance seems to be coming to an end.

An infographic, published by The Next Web using info from Internet World Stats, shows the growing prominence of Chinese users on the web, and predicts that Chinese will overtake English as the most popular online language in the next five years, reports Discovery News.

China added 36 million internet users last year, bringing their total to 440 million. In contrast, the US has only 220 million internet users.

English is currently the dominant Internet language with 537 million users using English as their primary language while 444 million speak Chinese.

But while the internet penetration among English speakers is 42 per cent, 42 per cent of people who speak Chinese have access to the Internet, meaning Chinese has a greater potential to expand than the English language.

China has several policies in place to support the growth of the Chinese language.

The General Administration of Press and Publication website recently announced that the mixing of foreign words in Chinese language publications without an accompanying Chinese language translation has been banned.

This includes many uses of common English sayings, abbreviations and phrases that have become popular in Chinese language publications in recent years.