Logos Group believes in Internet to promote multilingualism
Eurolang 30/11/2001


In 1974 Rodrigo Vergara escaped the Pinochet dictatorship of Chile. He became the founder of Logos Group, which today is one of the biggest translation services in the world.

As a contribution to the European Year of Languages, Italian-based Logos is presenting the world¿s biggest multilingual online dictionary, offering nine million terms in 195 languages.

One of their special projects at the moment is also the enforcing of regional and minority languages. Internet is a big resource for the safeguarding and promoting of regional languages.
It is cheap and it reaches out to everyone,¿ says Matteo Incerti, Marketing Manager.

We have about 2,500 collaborators all over the world, who on a voluntary and regular basis update the dictionary database, Incerti tells Eurolang.
The continuously expanding web service is free and contains languages such as Breton, Corse, Welsh, Flemish, Catalan, Sardinian among many other regional or minority languages.
The dictionary also specializes in dialects.
We try to keep the design of the site simple, so that it can be easily accessed by everybody, also in places of the world where the computers might not have such advanced features, explains Incerti.

The service of course aims to be available to everybody. A growing number of multilingual literatures and a dictionary for children is also provided on the Logos site.
The children can not only see the translated words, but also listen to some of them. The Children's Dictionary is currently a special task for Incerti. People without a language don't have anything. Our aim is to preserve all the languages of the world, and the children are the future, he states simply.

Logos Group is successful. For their Verba Volent project, which features quotations into a range of languages every day, they already have 90,000 subscribers.

Around 10 new subscribers of dictionary collaborators join every day. Logos has collaborators in over 150 countries worldwide and Incerti estimates that the company has about 3 million contacts across the world. Their mission is excellence in the translated word.





Eva Blässar