Historic Day As First Non-latin Web Addresses Go Live

[george]

'Historic' day as first non-latin web addresses go live

Arab nations are leading a "historic" charge to make the world wide web live up to its name.

Net regulator Icann has switched on a system that allows full web addresses that contain no Latin characters.

Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are the first countries to have so-called "country codes" written in Arabic scripts.

The move is the first step to allow web addresses in many scripts including Chinese, Thai and Tamil.

More than 20 countries have requested approval for international domains from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann).

It said the new domains were "available for use now" although it admitted there was still some work to do before they worked correctly for everyone. However, it said these were "mostly formalities".

Icann's senior director for internationalised domain names, Tina Dam, told BBC News that this has been "the most significant day" since the launch of the internet, adding that "it's been a very big day for Icann, more so for the three Arabic countries that were the first to be introduced".

Icann president Rod Beckstrom described the change as "historic".

Read right

The introduction of the first web names using so-called country code top-level domains (CCTLDs) is the culmination of several years of work by the organisation.

Previously, websites could use some non-Latin letters, but the country codes such as .eg for Egypt had to be written in Latin script.

The three new suffixes will allow web addresses to be completely written in native characters.

Continue reading the main story Saudi men talk and browse the internet at a hotel in Riyadh

The first country codes:

* Egypt: مصر

* Saudi Arabia: السعودية

* United Arab Emirates: امارات

Source: Icann

"All three are Arabic script domains, and will enable domain names written fully right-to-left," said Kim Davies of Icann in a blog post.

One of the first websites with a full Arabic address is the Egyptian Ministry of Communications.

Egypt's communication and information technology minister Tarek Kamal told the Associated Press that three Egyptian companies were the first to receive registrar licences for the '.masr' domain, written in Arabic.

Mr Kamal described the development as a "milestone in internet history".

Masr means Egypt in Arabic.

Some countries, such as China and Thailand, had already introduced workarounds that allow computer users to enter web addresses in their own language.

However, these were not internationally approved and do not necessarily work on all computers.

Ms Dam explained that the change was "not about shutting non-Arabic or non-Chinese speakers out of the internet.

"It's about including that large part of our world into the internet today."

She said there had previously been a risk the internet might have started to split.

"The chances are people would start creating their own internets, where it was only in Chinese, Arabic, Thai or whatever," she said.

Icann warned that the internationalised domain names (IDNs), as they are known, would also not work on all PCs immediately.

"You may see a mangled string of letters and numbers, and perhaps some percent signs or a couple of "xn--"s mixed into the address bar," said Mr Davies. "Or it may not work at all."

Previously, Icann has said that people would have to update the software on their computers to view the domains.

"Computers never come with the complete set of fonts that will allow it to show every possible IDN in the world.

"Often this is fixed by downloading additional language packs for the missing languages, or specifically finding and installing fonts that support the wanted languages."

Global access

When Icann first announced its plans for non-Latin web names it said it was the "biggest change" to the net "since it was invented 40 years ago".

"Over half the internet users around the world don't use a Latin-based script as their native language," said Mr Beckstrom at the time.

"IDNs are about making the internet more global and accessible for everyone."

Icann said it had received 21 requests for IDNs in 11 different languages, including Chinese, Russian, Tamil and Thai.

Website owners in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates will now be able to apply for web addresses using the new country codes.

-- BBC 2010-05-07

[newsfooter][/newsfooter]

[nikster]

Why people think that more languages are better is beyond me. It's such a bad idea.

"make it more accessible for everyone" how? It makes it less accessible. The main reason to cheer is probably that a new land grab for domain names can start - hurray for that!

[tonititan]

If you want a good laugh, go read the readers' comments attached to this story on CNN. The funniest were the comments from the Americans. (And yes, I am American too.) People were whining about having to learn another language, and saying it wasn't fair. I think sometimes people in English-speaking countries forget how lucky we are that English is a common language around the world, and that most people around the world have learned multiple languages.

The most shocking comments were those in which readers found a way to use this article to insult Muslims. Sigh.

[dave111223]

I think it's a very silly move, it totally destroys the "web economy".

It's like printing 100 trillion dollar bills and throwing them out of an airplane.

It's a move in the wrong direction, and goes against globalization. Previously for example an Arabic person wanted to read a Thai website. At least they could visit www.thethaiwebsite.com and then use a translator (google).

How are they supposed to go to ภาษาไทย.ภา?? If they don't even have a Thai keyboard...

[Sunny Valentine]

There is much more troubles ahead, leading to a segregation of users.

Imagine your Webmail page has an Arabic/Thai/Cyrillic/Whatever domain, and you want to access it on a public computer where the fonts are not installed ...

Very bad move ... and this post comes from a person who's first language is not English.

[wolf5370]

Yes totally agree with the consensus - totally nuts, typical PC appeasers destroying what they claim to condone, globalisation and a common forum. Action before thought IMHO. Hopefully the Chinese, Japanese, Thais etc will not follow the Arabs.

[RKASA]

This will only make censorship that much easier. Example any addy not in thai is banned.

It was in English for good reasons, being in English itself was never one of them.

It can be saved but only if it is required that all ulr numbers resolve in both language i.e 203.xxx.xxx.xxx will translate and open to a name in at least English and the other. To get a domain name you should require both work or be in English at least.

I can see it now, Domain names in English can only be resolved in Thailand if tax is paid to mict

Maybe it would be better if domain names just stayed in English

[Phil Conners]

They should have created their own Internet. Not going to be much cross traffic between the "old" internet and the new.

[bdenner]

How am I going to access Nigerian web sites to pass on by banking details in response to their generous offers? I can't even learn Thai so Nigerian is out of the question!

[rebo]

Hopefully the Chinese, Japanese, Thais etc will not follow the Arabs.

No question, they will. But I don't doubt the smarter ones will know that they'll decrease their advantages in case they're working on an international base. In some cases it may make sense: Imagine you want to sell a product almost local people are interested in e.g. amulets as consecrated magic glass marbels which will protect you - as has been proved, of course ... - from gunshots or poverty ...

I can't imagine this could have any negative result for me.

[robblok]

The arrogance of the native English speakers shows its ugly head again.

There are now already websites with addresses in other languages as English. My websites address is in Dutch, im sure there are Spanish, Portuguese and whatever other languages already used for website addresses.

How many times do you type the header and how many times do you use search to find a website and then click.

It al depends on who they are targeting.

[Neurath]

The arrogance of the native English speakers shows its ugly head again.

There are now already websites with addresses in other languages as English. My websites address is in Dutch, im sure there are Spanish, Portuguese and whatever other languages already used for website addresses.

How many times do you type the header and how many times do you use search to find a website and then click.

It al depends on who they are targeting.

Problem's not the language, but the script being used.

Not that I care much either way.

[rebo]

There are now already websites with addresses in other languages as English.

Sorry you missed the point, Robblok.

Here we are talking about "first non-latin web addresses", meaning URLs written in "foreign" letters like Arabian or Thai.

But in one point you are right imho:

It al depends on who they are targeting.

[robblok]

There are now already websites with addresses in other languages as English.

Sorry you missed the point, Robblok.

Here we are talking about "first non-latin web addresses", meaning URLs written in "foreign" letters like Arabian or Thai.

But in one point you are right imho:

It al depends on who they are targeting.

I did not miss the point as some posters were saying they would have problem reading it or typing it. Its kinda the same for the other non english languages. Granted now you need an other set of characters but that is the only difference.

[sting123]

There are now already websites with addresses in other languages as English.

Sorry you missed the point, Robblok.

Here we are talking about "first non-latin web addresses", meaning URLs written in "foreign" letters like Arabian or Thai.

But in one point you are right imho:

It al depends on who they are targeting.

I did not miss the point as some posters were saying they would have problem reading it or typing it. Its kinda the same for the other non english languages. Granted now you need an other set of characters but that is the only difference.

Who cares about some users? But the real problem will be for IT techs ... Untill now we had a common ground ASCII or UTF-8 for multi bytes characters.

That kind of 'technnical advance' is opposed to last draft related to the cookies, where we explicitly (IETF draft) that ASCII characters have to be used if not, the datas must be Base64 encoded. The reason being it is not evident everyone have a computer allowing the processing of UTF-8.

For what it is worth to mentionned; such decisions is considered hasty by the technical body; and might be reversed soon.

[nikster]

The arrogance of the native English speakers shows its ugly head again.

Granted, adding the possibility of other language domains in itself is OK, but I just don't like the segregation.

I am not a native English speaker but I would like the world to unite on one language. English works fine. You know why? Because I think it's good when people can talk to each other. I think it's bad when people can't talk to each other. It's that simple.

What about those people who don't speak English? Learn it! Or at least learn the latin alphabet. That's not discrimination - to the contrary, it leads to a better world. BTW English is not owned by the native English speaking nations, and never was.

[Phil Conners]

The arrogance of the native English speakers shows its ugly head again.

Granted, adding the possibility of other language domains in itself is OK, but I just don't like the segregation.

I am not a native English speaker but I would like the world to unite on one language. English works fine. You know why? Because I think it's good when people can talk to each other. I think it's bad when people can't talk to each other. It's that simple.

What about those people who don't speak English? Learn it! Or at least learn the latin alphabet. That's not discrimination - to the contrary, it leads to a better world. BTW English is not owned by the native English speaking nations, and never was.

Well said! I fully agree!

[robblok]

The arrogance of the native English speakers shows its ugly head again.

Granted, adding the possibility of other language domains in itself is OK, but I just don't like the segregation.

I am not a native English speaker but I would like the world to unite on one language. English works fine. You know why? Because I think it's good when people can talk to each other. I think it's bad when people can't talk to each other. It's that simple.

What about those people who don't speak English? Learn it! Or at least learn the latin alphabet. That's not discrimination - to the contrary, it leads to a better world. BTW English is not owned by the native English speaking nations, and never was.

I like English as a language too but its arrogant to expect everyone to learn it. Why is it so bad that other countries make it easier for their people to access the internet ?

[Crushdepth]

Kind of wonder how much software this is going to break. Seems more about national pride than common sense to me. Better to have one standard that is hard for some people to use than hundreds of standards that nobody can use.

[welo]

Kind of wonder how much software this is going to break. Seems more

about national pride than common sense to me. Better to have one

standard that is hard for some people to use than hundreds of

standards that nobody can use.

Some people?

grey is latin, other colors include Armenian, Cyrillic, Georgian, Greek,

Latin, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Arabic, Cyrillic, Hebrew, Hindi, Tamil,

Ethiopic, Thaana, Chinese,

source: wikipedia

Btw, did you guys know that it was possible for some time already (2004?) to have non-latin domain names, just not at the top level (as in .com, .net, .uk, and so on)

Try typing www.österreich.at on your keyboard!

Websites that cater to western audiences as well will provide latin domain names for sure, don't worry. The URL mentioned above is only a redirect to a strictly Latin address.

As to the technical aspect - of course it will makes things more complicated, but is this really an argument to oppose the introduction? If it was, we'd probably still have applications that can't handle UTF-8 and hence not fully support many European latin-based languages. I had to deal with multi-language websites in the past and it was such a pain because a lot of software (word processors) still doesn't support UTF-8.

welo

[welo]

I am not a native English speaker but I would like the world to unite on one language. English works fine. You know why? Because I think it's good when people can talk to each other. I think it's bad when people can't talk to each other. It's that simple.

What about those people who don't speak English? Learn it! Or at least learn the latin alphabet. That's not discrimination - to the contrary, it leads to a better world. BTW English is not owned by the native English speaking nations, and never was.

Of course a common language is important for a multi-cultural society and 'a better world'. I always thought English is not a bad choice because the grammar is reasonable (as opposed to some other western languages like French, German, etc) - Since history has chosen English as an International language for us, I guess it could have come a lot worse

But coming to Thailand and having to learn a new language that is so different from all the languages I've learned before, I have developed a new understanding for what it means to learn a language with a completely different scripting system and also tonal system.

And how many foreigners in Thailand have learned the language but never learned to read and write Thai script?

Why should a kid that is just learning to write its own language at school and doing its first steps on the computer being forced to learn a foreign alphabet? Why should a 50 year old who has enough troubles understanding the PC and the Internet be even more confused by a foreign alphabet?

Of course I support and encourage people to learn English, but at the same time why make it a requirement to access the Internet? Access to Information is a key in today's world, why not lower the entry level for non-western people to the same level as for western people.

I personally favor Malaysian or Indonesian as the world's number 1 language. They use latin characters (without any special characters as opposed to many European languages), the language is not tonal (<> Thai, Chinese, etc.), and the grammar is easy (comparable to Thai - no tenses, capitalization, etc).

Selamat tinggal!

welo

[robblok]

Welo, you express it much better as i could. You said what i wanted to say.

[Crushdepth]

Yep that's some people I don't think the map is entirely fair - much of it understands plain latin characters even if they have their own scripts. I presume most people using the internet now have picked up enough to get about, though maybe I am wrong.

Why should a kid that is just learning to write its own language at school and doing its first steps on the computer being forced to learn a foreign alphabet?

Because that's when its easiest for them to learn another language, and communication is a wonderful thing. Language balkanises the world.

I suppose people who provide multi-lingual content can just register multiple domain names in different character sets and with/without accents, although a lot of them inevitably won't. It's actually the accents the drive me mental, I suppose we'll just have to live with things like:

Error 4ö4: Umlaudts not found

[wolf5370]

Still confusion between language and script. No one really cares if the URI is in English, French, German, or transliterated Thai - the problems come when non-Latin scripts are used - especially double wide character sets. It DOES cause segregation simply because we can't have every script on our keyboards - the keys are just not big enough. English IS the international language, it most likely always will be (though once upon a time it was French - the diplomatic language), so it makes sense to make it the defacto language for the internet - it helps bring the world together. This move just causes segregation and IT headache4s - it not good.

I do like the idea of a Latin version of these URIs that resolve to the same address - that would address some issues perhaps.

[welo]

wolf,

Did it ever appear to you that the 26 letters of the 'english' alphabet do not cover many European languages completely that are otherwise based on latin letters?

Examples:

Ç ü ç ï Å æ ñ ß

Tell me if you find those letters on your keyboard!

Of course I'm aware that a different script such as Thai, Chinese, Cyrillic, etc is yet another (huge) step.

But please have a look at the world outside your box...

Not sure if you've read my other two comments on this topic - eager to hear your opinion.

welo