Statement on the access to media and communication devices in all European Languages
This Statement is addressed to the European Commission and the European Parliament as a plea to support national governments in gaining access to media content and communication devices in the languages of their citizens.
Statement on the access to media and communication devices in all European Languages
The members of the European Federation of National Institutions for Language (EFNIL) note that the situation for European languages has changed significantly in the digital age and there is an increasing demand by European citizens to access electronic communication devices and media in their own language.
EFNIL is concerned that the language practices of international corporations constrain the linguistic diversity of the European Union, endanger the maintenance of European multilingualism and are not in accordance with the principles of the European Parliament resolution of 11 September 2018 on language equality in the digital age (2018/2028 (INI)).
The language practices of international corporations interfere with national language legislation and standardisation work. International corporations who distribute electronic communication devices in the European Union do not in all cases offer to European consumers the choice of all the official languages of the European Union or the official regional languages of the member states in electronic communication devices, such as spell checkers, automatic translation, and other language technology based software solutions that are sold independently or as part of another device or product.
We also note that even if language support is offered, not all language technology products respect and support the official national rules for spelling, grammar, terminology etc. that public institutions in most European states are obliged to follow.
The same is observed for streaming service providers, which offer their products and content via the internet. Some companies offer products and services on the European market which allow the user to choose between multiple varieties of English, but do not offer subtitles or dubbing for all of the 24 official languages of the European Union or allow adding language plug-ins (spell checkers etc.) for the languages that they do not support.
The European Union needs to ensure that its citizens have access to media platforms and services in all European national and regional languages. We urge the European Union to adapt the relevant directives (e.g. Directive 2010/13/EU on audiovisual media services, Directive 2002/21/EC on a common regulatory framework for electronic communications networks and services) to this situation.
We fear that the lack of availability of popular media content in national and regional languages will lead to a diminished role of the languages that are not supported. There is a severe risk that these languages will experience changes in their status and use, at least in some parts of society, in favour of the more dominant languages. This may especially affect children, people who experience challenges with the acquisition of the official state languages, and persons working in or studying fields where English already has established itself as the dominant language, such as technology and science.
We believe that the recent developments in artificial intelligence, e.g. the use of large language models, have the potential to further accelerate these trends, as the availability and especially the quality and performance of large language models in languages other than English is already rather limited.
Call for action
EFNIL therefore calls for an initiative on the European level demanding that national legislation should be respected wherever media content or communication devices are offered to European citizens, to support European governments as they strive to secure access to technology for all citizens in their own language.
Examples of insufficient digital services in official European Languages
Online streaming services such as Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime
European legislation (Directive 2010/13/EU on audiovisual media services) requires that media companies provide adequate translation of their content in the official language(s) of the country where their company is registered. However, with the advent of online content, especially online streaming services, the service provider may be placed in one country, but distributes products and services all over Europe. As a consequence, the provision of adequate translation of content into other languages is left to market mechanisms, which tend to exclude languages with smaller numbers of speakers or provide content of very low linguistic quality (automatically translated subtitles etc.). In this way, current EU legislation has the side effect that it encourages non-compliance with the national language provisions that aim to protect the interest of the citizens.
This problem concerns, for instance, official languages in Slovenia, Croatia, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia.
Spell checkers in services such as Google Documents, Apple OS
Many spell checkers are based purely on artificial intelligence and probabilities gathered from random sources and do not take into account the norms of each language. Suggested spellings are frequently erroneous or redundant. Such an example is the spell checker in Google documents, which does not comply with the official spelling rules for Slovene. Even if high-quality spell checkers or similar products have been developed on a national level for an officially recognised language, international system providers, such as Microsoft and Google, do not allow the integration of these tools to be used as individual or local plug-ins.
The problem concerns, for instance, official languages in Norway (New Norwegian), Slovenia, and many minority languages, regional languages and officially recognised languages in all parts of Europe, for instance Greenlandic.
User interfaces on smart devices such as Apple OS, iOS and Android
Apple smartphone devices do not offer support for 5 out of the 24 official EU languages in interfaces on smart devices, such as Apple OS, iOS, Carplay etc.
This problem concerns, for instance, Estonian, Latvian, Maltese, and Slovenian.
Maltese is also absent from the default language list of Android, and the official writing and reading of place names and street names in Maltese is not available on Google Maps.
We acknowledge that newer versions and updates of the services from time to time include more languages, however, the current situation, where even official EU language users have to wait 4 to 8 years before new technology becomes available in their mother tongue, is absolutely unacceptable.
Adopted by EFNIL’s General Assembly 23 September 2024.