The domain name regulator ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Name and Numbers) announced after a six day conference that they would allow non-Latin domain names.
To give you an example of what is meant by "Non-Latin" we shall look close to home. Under the new plan (assuming Bruce and co do it) www.searchwarp.com would also be ثثث.قهأصحجثأعص.جسمor 瓦特瓦特瓦特峞以研究建華瓦特以研究陸炳Ø米. In the second domain, I don't know where the dots go, since I got help with the first and don't know any Chinese speakers to help with the second – but you get the idea.
The idea behind the shift is to allow universal access to the internet. For example if you were an Arab who loved reading articles on SearchWarp (with google translator) you would get annoyed about having to type: www.searchwarp.com and not having a clue what it means. Conversely, the majority of SearchWarp -who speak - English-, would get annoyed if they had to type in, ثثث.قهأصحجثأعص.جسم, every time you came to SearchWarp.
I must say I'm already annoyed with the other domain: I'm sitting here writing the article and since Arabic is written backwards, from our perspective, Microsoft Word thinks I want to type backwards so I keep deleting it.
This will mark the greatest change in domain names since their creation. We are going from using A-Z, 1-9 and a few special characters that total no more than 100 characters to 100,000 characters.
The change would totally reinvent in internet over afternoon tea. It will, however, start with local codes like: .ru, .gr and .il. The normal domains like: .com, .net, .biz., .info, .org and so on will not see any changes just yet but there are plans for this in the future.
This is a fantastic idea and a huge step towards globalisation of the internet. The days where Europe and the US dominated the internet are no more. In recent times we have seen an influx of Arabs and Chinese onto the internet and thus we have to adjust. It's really not fair for those groups to have to use our system. I can assure you that if roles were reversed we, who use Latin domain names, would be the ones grumbling.
To summerise, the video below shows ICANN's plans in there own words.
Interesting Connor, glad you decided to write about this... this is surely a milestone for the Internet.
Coincidentally, if you've followed my status updates on SearchWarp the past few days you would have seen that I've finally figured out the problem with our HTML editors leaving out apostrophe's in articles and their titles the first time they are submitted. It turns out the problem was because of the way Microsoft servers handle non-Latin character sets by default. It had nothing to do with the HTML editors themselves.
The fix for this problem was to enable the SearchWarp servers to operate with the utf-8 character set, which will also allow posting of articles in these other languages.
Who knows, maybe SearchWarp will be opening up offices in Bangkok, Tokyo, and Islamabad in the future!
Don't some websites have an option button that when pressed translates the page into another language without foreign languages blatantly displayed inititally?Latin used to be the universal scientific language needed for medical students around the world.
If one was an aspiring medical pupil,one was forced to learn latin, a language needed to access and research most abstracts.
French and German came in as a second proficiency access language.
I had no idea. What a great article! In my ignorance, I thought they could use a computer translation service.
Thanks for sharing that with us. Also didn't know we could add video to our articles. Boy, does that open a whole new world for me. We could tiptoe through my tulips!
If you want a video in your article you need to get the HTML code. IF you look on YouTube some videos have a "embedded" bit. If you copy and paste that you can get a video in your article.
Connor, Excellent! Very well-written and informative. It really is becoming a smaller world. Leads me to think about some of the biblical ramifications, but that's another story :-)
PS - Your writing skills have improved since you first joined us, it is wonderful to see how you have grown and expanded. Kudos to you! Blessings, Teresa
Connor, super article - thanks. To be honest with you I never gave this too much thought and now I probably won't sleep thinking about the various combinations and usages.
I am not computer literate so I will have to do some more reading to get a better understanding for what you are talking about, however, when I read an article I like to comment so people are aware that they are appreciated for the articles they write, so I say thank you., Linda D
» left by Anonymous from New York (1 day 1 hour ago.)
Will the existing Latin domain names change? Why throw the baby out with the bath water. If Arabic and Chinese users want domain names in their language, fine. However, why do Latin names need to change? Frankly, after our latest terrorist attack (yes it was a terrorist attack) in Texas coupled with the 9/11 terrorist receiving a full trial in New York as if he were an American citizen, I am not inclined to rally around "globalization" of the internet. It will probably just make it easier for terrorists to communicate with each other and attack the Western world.
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