In a multilingual domain ontology developed using the labels approach, where each ontological entity is labelled with a language-tagged string, two scenarios result: (1) the ontology is ‘language-independent’, where there is an equal number of labels per natural language, or (2) the ontology is a ‘primary-language’ ontology, where one natural language takes precedence over the other languages used. In a multilingual ontology, it is assumed there is full equivalence between the different languages, however, each natural language, as an embodiment of a culture, differs in how it interprets and organises the world. The result is that although the viewpoint expressed by the multilingual domain ontology is thought to be universal, one natural language is very often privileged, typically English.

Using the culture-bound concepts of ‘dowry’ and ‘bride price’, we demonstrate the differences in perspective when considered for different languages and sub-domains. We propose an ontology, Model of Multiple Viewpoints (MULTI), where both language and culture are considered together, and language is classified as a social norm of a community. MULTI is formalised in OWL and aligned to DOLCE+DnS Ultralite, a foundational ontology suitable for modelling contexts. The evaluation of MULTI is done against the identified use cases. The expected result is that an ontology can be annotated with its viewpoint, thus making the viewpoint of the ontology explicit.