Although it may be assumed that English is the general lingua franca of the world wide web, it’s worth pointing out that English accounts for just under 28% in terms of usage in the web as of December 2009.

Search interest in “translate” related keywords continues to grow and Google wants to break the language barrier. They are doing it through Google Translate, Chrome Plugin, Google Goggles, Speech-to-Speech.

Likely Implication is that English could lose its status as the global lingua franca and the need to learn it will become less relevant, thereby preserving a whole host of other languages.

See: Memeburn