Sample addresses in nearly a dozen languages will be added to the Internet's central directories as early as next week, paving the way for Web surfers around the world to get online without knowing any English.At this point, the 11 domain names are meant primarily for software developers and Web site designers to test the new system, but they are the first such names entered in the 13 key domain name directories, known as root servers, after years of discussions and limited-access tests.
The 11 suffixes now under review will read "test" in Arabic, Persian, simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese, Russian, Hindi, Greek, Korean, Yiddish, Japanese and Tamil.
Sample Non-English Domains On The Way [ap.google.com]
You'll have to wait until October 15th to get detials from ICANN.
(sorry, pedantic I know... :-) )
I think ICANN should stop thinking about these trivial issues because there are bigger issues that they have swept under the carpet. Prices of .com domains are going up by 10% later this month and prices will go up by another 10% every year for next few years. Are they raising this extra revenue to spend on stuff that no one is ever likely to use?
[edited by: iThink at 8:23 pm (utc) on Oct. 5, 2007]
ie. webmasterworld.com vs. wëbmastërworld.com? (look carefully)
or is this something else?
ie. webmasterworld.com vs. wëbmastërworld.com?
Hahaha surely that should be webmasterwörld.com?
And for those of you who think that IDNs are only of a concern for languages other than english, think again. In particular, æ and é are conspicuously missing forcing misspellings in many domain names.
We've had the ability to register korean character urls in korea for YEARS. like since 5 years ago AT LEAST.
This NOT been available elsewhere? +_+ man, the things one takes for granted.
The 11 suffixes now under review will read "test" in Arabic, Persian, simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese, Russian, Hindi, Greek, Korean, Yiddish, Japanese and Tamil.
Interesting, no Spanish or German? (I don't know if the French or Italian alaphabets have any non-26 letter characters).
piñacolada.com anyone? :)
