Pedro Gil Candeias

• About Me

11-16-09

The Babel Conundrum: In What Language Should I Blog?

Seems easy enough. Just go with whatever your parents taught you, right? Well, not necessarily. You see, there are a billion other people out there, and unless you speak Chinese or English, your native tongue may severely limit your audience.

Der Turmbau zu Babel, 1595 - Maerten I van Valckenborch

But the problem runs a bit deeper; it’s not just numbers. In fact, looking at the numbers alone, I should be quite happy to blog in my native Portuguese: over 230M people speak the language worldwide, and as far as market sizes go, that’s pretty sweet.

But this is not about segmentation. It’s about the goals one sets for oneself. And my goal for this blog is to add my voice to a global discussion. And since the King’s seems to be the language of choice for the discerning cybernaut (Bam! 90’s lingo flashback), I believe that’s what I’ll be using.