Linguistic Diversity

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America the Linguistically Diverse: Implications for the Telecommunications Industry


According to the US Census, 14% of Americans speak a language at home other than English. Many more Americans speak a language other than English at least occasionally. There are hundreds of languages being spoken in America. Up to now, this diversity of languages has had little impact on the telecommunications industry. The ability to transmit voice signals does not depend on which language the voice is speaking. However, with the increasing reliance of carriers on data transmission in addition to voice transmission for incremental revenue, language issues are becoming critical.

Linguistic diversity implies technical problems to solve, and, more importantly, provides a marketing bonanza for carriers and handset manufacturers. Minority linguistic communities tend to be very tightly knit. The ability to speak a particular language and thus participate in a particular culture is key to the personal identity of many. Much of their communication is with other people, such as family members, who share that language and that identity. By targeting these communities and satisfying their needs, carriers can anticipate developing close and stable relationships with loyal customers. Once that relationship is established, it can be nurtured and expanded by providing an ever-increasing range of premium content and services which address the specific needs of these communities.

In addition to direct increase in revenues, linguistic sensitivity promises to enhance the brand of any carrier or handset manufacturer selling in America. Americans are proud of the linguistic and cultural diversity of their country. Any telecommunications player who concretely demonstrates their responsiveness to that diversity will garner support and fidelity from its customers, even from those who happen to not be members of a minority group.

Language diversity now confronts carriers because text-entry technology, is language specific. The diversity of languages implies diversity of fonts and character sets. Even using conventional technology such as multi-tap or a full keyboard, language-specific characters need to be generated, displayed, and transmitted. Using advanced technology such as predictive-text technology, the language issues become even more acute. Predictive text systems depend on linguistic databases which encode characteristics of specific languages. Support of each language requires a research and development effort. Further, each of the databases has to be stored in the handset by a manufacturer. This, in turn requires the devotion of physical resources such as read-only memory.

The most widely used predictive text-entry method today is sold by AOL under the brand name T9. T9 has a variety of limitations which make it an unsuitable base from which to address the linguistic diversity of the American marketplace. Some of these limitations are:

  1. T9 is hard to learn and hard to use.
  2. T9 is available only in a small number of languages.
  3. New language database development is difficult for T9.
  4. T9 requires a large amount of memory in a handset.
  5. T9 does not allow people to mix languages in a single message.

Eatoni's advanced predictive text-entry product, LetterWise, solves all of these problems. LetterWise is easy to learn, easy to use, and available in many languages, with more languages being added almost daily. LetterWise linguistic databases are so small that 100 languages can be supported in the memory which T9 requires for 5 languages. LetterWise allows languages to be freely mixed, regardless of which of the linguistic databases is used.

To take advantage of the linguistic diversity opportunity, American carriers should request that their handset vendors install LetterWise in their handsets, in as many languages as possible. 100 languages are possible in most current-generation handsets. They should let it be known that the carrier has felt the customer's pain in not being able to send messages in their own language, and wants to share their joy in finally being able to do so. They should follow up with premium content and data services with specific advantage to each of these communities.

Further information on the issues raised here can be found on the Eatoni website: www.eatoni.com, or by writing to

References: US Census.


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