0.56% of Maltese Websites written in Maltese
A recent study conducted by the Maltalinks Search Engine found that only 0.56% of Maltese websites are written in Maltese. Using its own proprietary technology that automatically identifies the language used to write a particular web page, Maltalinks conducted the study on a sample of almost 200,000 Maltese websites. The websites were selected if they contained information about Malta or were created by Maltese persons.
The languages that are currently handled by Maltalinks are English, Maltese, Italian, French, Spanish, Russian, Dutch and German, representing a broad cross section of the most common languages used to publish content on the Internet. The following table summarises the results of the study, showing the percentage of websites containing information about Malta that are written in a particular language.
| Language | Percentage |
| English | 98.67% |
| Maltese | 0.56% |
| German | 0.20% |
| French | 0.18% |
| Dutch | 0.15% |
| Russian | 0.11% |
| Italian | 0.09% |
| Spanish | 0.04% |
The results confirm the dominance of English as the lingua franca of the Internet, since it enables published material to have as wide an audience as possible. The use of Maltese on websites containing content about Malta or created by Maltese persons is on the increase. The Maltalinks search engine is the first search engine to correctly identify and look for Maltese content on the Internet. Although Maltese content on the Internet is still sparse in quantity, this is expected to increase as more people become used to the idea of writing in Maltese on various computer systems. Recent initiatives such as the use of Unicode and a standardised system for typing Maltese on different computers are helping to improve the situation.
"We believe that the only way to preserve our national identity and ensure that Maltese does not become regarded as an inferior language is to facilitate the publishing of Maltese content on the Internet since more material is increasingly being published on the Internet", said Angelo Dalli, Maltalinks CEO, "Our technology is poised to cater for the needs of Maltese people who publish content in Maltese on the Internet by making effective retrieval of Maltese documents possible".
Maltalinks intends to conduct these studies at regular intervals to keep track of the type of content published on the Internet about Malta. Eventually it is hoped that this study will provide an indirect indication of the effectiveness of various initiatives being undertaken to increase the popularity of Maltese on the web. This information is also useful to various operators and businesses in the tourist industry who often get a significant amount of their bookings via the Internet. The Maltalinks Search Engine can be accessed online at www.maltalinks.com.
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