After all, who invented the airplane? Multilingualism and grassroots knowledge production on Wikipedia

The English-language Wikipedia article on the airplane states that Clément Ader ‘attempted to fly’, whereas ‘the Wright brothers invented and flew the first airplane’. The French-language Wikipedia, in turn, points to France's pioneering role in aviation – which contrasts with the emphasis placed on Portuguese-speaking aviators in the Portuguese-language entry. Paradoxically, in each language, the airplane has a different inventor. Through online ethnography, this article explores the multilingual landscape of Wikipedia, looking not only at languages, but also at language varieties, and unpacking the intricate connections between language, country, and nationality in grassroots knowledge production online. Advocating for an attention to how multilingualism online involves more than ‘Google Translate-ing’ content, this study challenges conventional views of user-generated content platforms as unproblematically global and multilingual. • Wikipedia serves as a productive entry point for exploring language use and knowledge co-production online. • Ethnographic and archival research allow for the analysis of multilingualism in user-generated content platforms. • Grassroots knowledge production intricately intertwines – and occasionally conflates – language, country, and nationality. • The use of language varieties online challenges the notion of digital platforms as unproblematically global and multilingual.