Language and Humor Blog

As I reported last week (Help test internationalized domain names 2007-10-15), the time has come to see how non-Latin characters will work in domain names. The Internet administrators at ICANN have set up test domains (http://example.test) in eleven writing systems. You can type them into different browsers, put them in E-mails, and create a wiki page with your name in non-Latin characters at each domain.

Here’re the domains:

• http://مثال.إختبار/الصفحة_الرئيسية Arabic
• http://例子.测试/首页 Chinese (simplified characters)
• http://例子.測試/首頁 Chinese (traditional characters)
• http://παράδειγμα.δοκιμή/Αρχική_σελίδα Greek
• http://उदाहरण.परीक्षा/मुख्य_पृष्ठ Hindi
• http://例え.テスト/メインページ Japanese
• http://실례.테스트/대문 Korean
• http://مثال.آزمایشی/صفحه‌ی_اصلی Persian/Farsi
• http://пример.испытание/Заглавная_страница Russian
• http://உதாரணம்.பரிட்சை/முதற்_பக்கம் Tamil
• http://בײַשפּיל.טעסט/הויפּט_זײַט Yiddish

It’s still ASCII encoding; each domain has a transliteration encoding starting with an “xn--” prefix.

Here’re the actual addresses:

• http://xn--mgbh0fb.xn--kgbechtv/ Arabic
• http://xn--fsqu00a.xn--0zwm56d/ Chinese (simplified characters)
• http://xn--fsqu00a.xn--g6w251d/ Chinese (traditional characters)
• http://xn--hxajbheg2az3al.xn--jxalpdlp/ Greek
• http://xn--p1b6ci4b4b3a.xn--11b5bs3a9aj6g/ Hindi
• http://xn--r8jz45g.xn--zckzah/ Japanese
• http://xn--9n2bp8q.xn--9t4b11yi5a/ Korean
• http://xn--mgbh0fb.xn--hgbk6aj7f53bba/ Persian/Farsi
• http://xn--e1afmkfd.xn--80akhbyknj4f/ Russian
• http://xn--zkc6cc5bi7f6e.xn--hlcj6aya9esc7a/ Tamil
• http://xn--fdbk5d8ap9b8a8d.xn--deba0ad/ Yiddish

When you get into Web pages, the encoding gets rather long. For example, this would be the wiki listing for Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa:

http://例え.テスト/黒澤明

Here’s what you may see in your browser address bar:

http://xn--r8jz45g.xn--zckzah/%E9%BB%92%E6%BE%A4%E6%98%8E

They worked in my browser and E-mail. I was also pleasantly surprised to see that the Chinese and Japanese domains work with both the ASCII period/full stop “dot” (.) and with the Chinese/Japanese open-circle period (。).

More information at:

My Name, My Language, My Internet: IDN Test Goes Live

IDNwiki

As I mentioned over a year ago (More writing systems for Internet addresses), Internet domains are biased towards English speakers. You have to use only the Latin alphabet (without accents), Arabic numerals, and hyphens (all English ASCII characters) for Web site and E-mail domains. After seven years of research and workshops, ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is ready to start testing internationalized domain names (IDNs).

You can help on Monday, October 15, 2007

Visit the links on their page to the test domains in:

• Arabic
• Chinese (simplified and traditional characters)
• Greek
• Hindi
• Japanese
• Korean
• Persian
• Russian
• Tamil and
• Yiddish.

Within their own country codes (.cn, .jp, etc.), some countries have been using their own writing systems for domain names since 2003, but they’ve still been stuck with the top-level .cn, etc. Even accented letters are a tricky thing. Just this week Spain, within .es, added accented vowels, tilde-n, and more.

China has gone further and added Chinese-character top-level domains: .公司 (.gongsi, .com; “company,” “corporation”) .网络 (.wangluo, .net; “network”), and .中国 (.zhongguo, .cn; “China”).

Now ICANN wants to make those sort of non-ASCII domains accessible for Web surfers who aren’t in China (and avert the surfing errors that could happen with multiple, separate internets).

Why the delays?

Aside from the technical difficulties and possible indifference to other languages by the American company ICANN (moneyweb.co.za/mw/view/mw/en/page94?oid=165049&sn=Detail) [EDIT (6/6/10): dead link], there are also the fears of trademark holders and opportunities for spoof domains using similar-looking letters from languages like Greek and Russian.

But let’s look to the future. Onward to an Internet for all writing systems!