In what’s set to be one of the largest and far reaching changes to how the internet has worked for many years, the approval for non-Latin script for domain addresses has been confirmed by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, ICANN.
“Right now internet address endings are limited to Latin characters – A to Z. But the Fast Track Process is the first step in bringing the 100,000 characters of the languages of the world online for domain names.” Said Chairman Peter Dengate Thrush in a statement to the press last week.
Since Its inception domain addresses have been used as the key identifier for websites, and during the mid nineties most of the best were snapped up. Domains can now sell for thousands or even hundreds of thousands of pounds. One thing about domains that has remained constant has been the lettering – no matter what language you use, you’ve had to keep your letters to basic Latin script, despite most modern operating systems accepting many more.
This has long since been a problem for countries in the world that don’t use Latin script in their primary language, or even those that use accents on words. Key languages can now have their own domain names, such as Japanese, Arabic, Greek and Korean. The move has been described by ICANN as the “biggest [technical] change to the internet since it was invented 40 years ago”
The first non Latin domain names should be available from mid 2010 onwards.
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