Language Policy

IPB is committed to making available as many of our materials as possible in as many languages as possible – especially major world languages.

We are conscious of the excessive domination of English as a world language — but also aware of its role as a convenient lingua franca for large numbers of readers. Thus the original language of most of our documents is English, and these are presented on this site and on our social media pages etc.

However, professional translation is expensive, and our very limited income restricts our capacity to maintain versions of the website in even one or two other languages, as many other organisations do. It is true that many volunteer translators are available and willing to help, and indeed we do make use of their services. However even managing our use of volunteers takes a certain amount of time away from actually carrying out our projects.

Over the years we have arranged translations of many key documents. However these have been mostly into West European languages (as well as Arabic and Japanese) and we are keen to find opportunities to expand our languages range to reflect a broader worldwide readership.

We have decided to make available these translations directly at the place in the website where they appear, rather than in a separate section labelled ‘français’ etc. We estimate that most readers will have enough English to navigate to the pages they are most interested in.

If you would like to assist us, for example by offering your volunteer help in translating materials, please contact the Secretariat.