cover image: Mosaic of the fediverse logo with the icons of the different projects. Image via Wikimedia Commons by Tobias Buckdahn. BY SA 4.0
I've always been obsessed with languages (in fact, I even work with them!) and one of the problems I've always had with certain realities, especially on the web, is how often we end up talking in our own "garden" because of them:
I'm a native Italian speaker, I live in Greece (and I'd really like to learn Greek one of these days...) so belive me, I know what I'm talking about.
I also speak English and Spanish fairly well (or I hope so at least!) and I'm writing this post in English precisely because it is the "lingua franca" of the digital world (and more).
One thing that perhaps not everyone knows about the Fediverse is that it is possible to filter posts in various languages to see only those that you know.
Between me and you?
I hope that few people will use this tool and that, from each of their instances, they will enjoy seeing what is happening in the federated timelines to understand what is happening in places and cultures different from their own.
I understand well that translation services are often expensive or problematic, and that many users would prefer to see only posts that they can immediately understand and comment on, but I believe that one of the many infamous problems of "social bubbles" has led us to isolate ourselves even more, closing ourselves in increasingly small realities with the feeling that they are the entire universe.
Fediverse
Maybe I dream that the Fediverse could be a modern Babel (possibly with a different ending), but the thing I would like to see the most is greater interaction between different instances in different languages and in the strangest contexts:
a beneficial contamination that leads to further distinguishing itself from the constraints of commercial social networks.
For this reason, I would like to encourage everyone to post something in other languages (even "just" English!) and maybe to dialogue with people who are discussing a topic that is interesting to us in a different language:
in my experience, fantastic discussions come out of it that change one's local point of view a lot.