The popularity of the internet is enforcing a digital bilingualism around the world. Nowadays you must not only master your mother tongue; you must also acquire facility with the language that controls content on the web. You must, in short, become fluent in HTML -- or Hypertext Markup Language, for those whose coding is still rusty.

Luckily, HTML is one of the most basic and learner-friendly coding programs ever invented. Developed from Generalized Markup Language (GML) that was first used back in 1969, HTML has been undergoing a subtle evolution for over 30 years. Initially, university professors use the code to make articles electronically available to each other. The focus of HTML, then as now, was the linking of text-based files.

Today, or course, HTML is capable of formatting text, defining its appearance onscreen, and -- most importantly -- embedding hyperlinks within chunks of textual content. This means you can be reading through an article on the web and, by clicking on an underlined word or highlighted image, you'll go directly to a new webpage, located on a different server, containing scads more information and an astronomical number of further links.

Because HTML is a relatively simple language, capable of being picked up by people with no programming experience, it doesn't handle dynamic functions of web display, such as pop-up windows and roll-over commands (images that change as you roll your mouse over them). What makes HTML so versatile, however, is that its code can incorporate references to separate files which, in turn, hold instructions for more dynamic web functions. Programs such as JavaScript and CCS (cascading style sheets) are coded and saved outside of the main HTML document, and then referred to within the HTML body. This versatility ensures that HTML will remain at once the simplest and the most widely-used language on the web. It may have its limitations; but it compensates by incorporating less limited programs within its framework.

The latest development in HTML features a fusion of the standard program with Extensible Markup Language (XML). This fusion, to be called XHTML 1.0, will enable more precise search capabilities within all sites on the internet. Using XHTML, individual paragraphs can be flagged according to subject-matter, allowing search engines to scan information for more than mere key words.