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ICANN Mulling Multilingual URLs

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the so-many-ways-to-say-google dept.

griffjon writes "The Washington Post is reporting that ICANN is testing out fully multilingual domain names. These won't just be [non-western-language].com, but would have TLDs translated into other scripts, fixing annoyances for non-English speaking audiences. An example: 'Speakers of Hebrew, Arabic and any other language written from right to left must type half of the URL in one direction and the other half — the .com, .net or .org postscript — the opposite way.' Let's hope it goes better this time around: 'Next week's experiments use the domain name "example.test" translated into 11 languages. A previous model, however, used "hippopotamus" instead of "test." These plans went awry when an Israeli registrar realized the Hebrew word ICANN thought meant "hippopotamus" was an expletive and threatened to involve the Israeli government.'"

3 of 213 comments (clear)

  1. Domain name != URL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    A URL is an entire address, including the protocol, local path and fragment identifier. This is a URL:

    http://slashdot.org/foo?bar=baz#qux

    A domain name does not include the protocol, the local path or the fragment identifier. This is a domain name:

    slashdot.org

    This is talking about domain names, not URLs. If anybody would talk about multilingual URLs, it would be the IETF, not ICANN, and they already have, they are called IRIs.

  2. More info here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    xc.estaog//:ptth

  3. Well, uh, we could click by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    This is a fair comment - how do we deal with languages we don't know and can't even type? Let's see, I'd say somebody should really come up with a way to get to a site on the Internet without having to type some moon language that has letters that aren't even on my keyboard. Maybe there could be some other input device we could use, maybe this little hand-held rodent-looking device just to the side of my keyboard. I've always wanted a use for it.

    Maybe if I did a search for something, and the answer is in one of those "other" languages written by those "other" people, maybe I could somehow click some kind of--I don't know--maybe a representation of that site, using my rat or squirrel or whatever these new-fangled devices are called. Then of course I'd like to be able to save this transportation capability for future use; if only there were a way to save some kind of cyber-bookmark in my browser, to keep my place without having to type in all those funny characters ever again. I think I have some ideas, but I need to contact my patent attorney first.

    Oh, no. Wait. I just thought of something bad. You know, when I actually get to this site, it's probably going to be really hard to understand what's written on the page. Funny squiggles and such. I suppose there's really just no reason for me to go to such a page, if I can't read it anyway, so why even bother? Plus "they" probably don't know anything good anyway, but there's always a chance that "they" might be more intelligent than we thought. If only there were some site that provided a service that could help me translate this page, then maybe, just maybe, I'd be Ok with allowing these foreign-speaking visitors to spread their native language like some kind of disease all over "my" Internet. If only...