Internet / the Internet - definite article

G

Gavril

Senior Member
English, USA
If your language has definite articles, do you normally use an article with the word "Internet", or your language's equivalent thereof? I.e., do you use a phrase that means "the Internet", or simply "Internet"?

In English, Internet is normally usually used with a definite article: "I looked it up on the Internet", "The article is on The Internet now", etc. On the other hand, I've heard that it's considered incorrect to say L'Internet in French: instead, one is supposed to say Internet, without the definite article l(e).
 
    • Hi Gavril,

    Modern Greek uses the definite article much more frequently than the classical language, before proper names, and nouns in an abstract sense.
    Internet in Greek is «Διαδίκτυο» [ði.a'ðikti.o] (neut.) a word calqued from the English one, and we refer to it as the-neuter Internet --> «το Διαδίκτυο». Even if the English name is used untranslated, the neuter definite article is there --> «το Ίντερνετ»
     
    Dutch: both can be used, I think. Generally I'd say that I found something op internet, but if I'd generally wish to refer to the phenomenon, then het internet would be possible, the worldwide web world then...
     
    In Portuguese, a Internet, "the Internet". We use the English noun with the feminine article, no doubt because the word rede "net/network" is feminine, and it's understood on some level. In fact, sometimes "the (inter)net" is actually translated as a rede.
     
    Anja.Ann said:
    Hi, Gavril :)

    No definite article in Italian. We say "Ho visto l'articolo in Internet" or "Ho trovato l'articolo in rete". :)
    Click to expand...

    Same for Spanish: Busqué el artículo en internet. Lo vi en internet.
     
    涼宮 said:
    Same for Spanish: Busqué el artículo en internet. Lo vi en internet.
    Click to expand...

    red is generally used with an article, isn't it? (Lo busqué en la red = "I searched for it on the 'net", etc.) However, I don't think red is as widely used in Spanish as Internet for this meaning.
     
    Gavril said:
    However, I don't think red is as widely used in Spanish as Internet for this meaning.
    Click to expand...
    As far as I have seen in Spanish newspapers, it's always Red and practically never Internet.

    In Finnish, as you surely know, there's no equivalent for "the". Instead, we have the possibility to consider the word as a proper noun or a common noun by using an upper case or a lower case letter for the initial i. Both are possible but I think that the lower case i is recommended today.

    Instead, in the Spanish newspapers that I have read it's always Red, not red.
     
    Hakro said:
    In Finnish, as you surely know, there's no equivalent for "the". Instead, we have the possibility to consider the word as a proper noun or a common noun by using an upper case or a lower case letter for the initial i. Both are possible but I think that the lower case i is recommended today.
    Click to expand...
    Idem for Turkish. :thumbsup:
     
    There are no articles in Russian, but the same problem exists as capitalize it or not.
    Till the recent time it was recommended to capitalize Internet when used in the sense of the worldwide web, i.e. proper object name (like the Moon and the Sun). However nowadays it is reckoned to become the common name and is not capitalized any more.
     
    Absolutely the same thing goes for Serbian. The latest Orthography book from 2010 mentions only internet, lowercase.
     
    Gavril said:
    red is generally used with an article, isn't it? (Lo busqué en la red = "I searched for it on the 'net", etc.) However, I don't think red is as widely used in Spanish as Internet for this meaning.
    Click to expand...

    Yep, it isn't that used and it does use the article. The times I've seen the word 'red' being used have been at cybercafes, ''juega en red''. But nothing else.
     
    涼宮 said:
    Yep, it isn't that used and it does use the article. The times I've seen the word 'red' being used have been at cybercafes, ''juega en red''. But nothing else.
    Click to expand...
    According to this, it seems that 'red' is seldom if ever used in American Spanish, but I've seen it generally used in Castellano.

    Am I right or wrong?
     
    Hakro said:
    According to this, it seems that 'red' is seldom if ever used in American Spanish, but I've seen it generally used in Castellano.

    Am I right or wrong?
    Click to expand...

    No idea if it's common in Spain. It's better if you ask in the Spanish forum.
     
    Today I found it interesting some languages use the preposition "in" like German or Russian.

    Hungarian --- az interneten [on the...]

    German --- im Internet [in the...]
     
    In French, in theory, both are possible (internet / l'internet, capitalized or not) but usually, you are either a fierce defender of 'internet' and deny the possibility of 'l'internet' or vice versa (see this heated discussion in the French only forum: Internet / l'internet) but you usually can't like both versions at the same time.
    (personally, I find that 'l'internet' is something that only old people would say but hush ;) :p)
     
    In French, I use sometimes the one, sometims the other, but I think I go for the general French tendency to use the definite article even with rather abstract nouns.
     
    That, I think, is not the tendency to use the definite article with abstract nouns, but the tendency to use the definite article for terms that should be definite for people who do the thinking, not for the very process of making models of the world. I don't think this tendency quite applies to the Internet, which may be considered either as a nom propre (like Charle) or as a (abstract, but it does not matter) thing to make judgements of. In defense of my position (written prior to my opening the thread mentioned by DearPrudence and prior even to my seeing its name), see for example that the options are either Internet or l'internet (note the capitalization written by default and the comments).
     
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