Internet addresses set for change

RAM

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Internet addresses set for change


The internet regulator has approved plans to allow non-Latin-script web addresses, in a move that is set to transform the online world.

The board of Icann voted at its annual meeting in Seoul to allow domain names in Arabic, Chinese and other scripts. More than half of the 1.6 billion people who use the internet speak languages with non-Latin scripts. It is being described as the biggest change to the way the internet works since it was created 40 years ago. The first Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs) could be in use next year.

Plans for IDNs were first approved at a meeting in June 2008, but testing of the system has been going on for two years. The move paves the way for the internet's Domain Name System (DNS) to be changed so it can recognise and translate non-Latin characters. The DNS acts like a phonebook, turning easily understood domain names into strings of computer-readable numbers, known as Internet Protocol (IP) addresses.
This change is very much necessary for not only half the world's internet users today but more than half, probably, of the future users as the internet continues to spread

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) said the "fantastically complicated technical feature" allowing IDNs would represent the "biggest change" to the coding that underlies the internet since it was invented four decades ago.

BBC technology correspondent Mark Gregory says in the early days of the internet, language posed no problem, as most web-surfers spoke English and those that did not usually wrote in languages based on the Latin alphabet.

But this is no longer true, adds our correspondent.

Icann said it would accept the first applications for IDNs by 16 November, with the first up and running by "mid-2010".

It is likely the majority of early non-Latin net addresses to be approved will be in Chinese and Arabic script, followed by Russian.

Some countries, such as China and Thailand, have already introduced workarounds that allow computer users to enter web addresses in their own language.

However, these were not internationally approved and do not work on all computers.


Our correspondent says the point of the Icann vote was to create a universal internet address code that will work in any language and every place so all the world's computers can connect with each other.

There is a danger that the internet - a tool for culture, information - sharing and dialog on a non-national level, may become irreversibly fragmented -Stefanos Likkas, Athens, Greece

"Of the 1.6 billion internet users today worldwide, more than half use languages that have scripts that are not Latin-based," said Icann president and CEO Rod Beckstrom earlier this week.

"So this change is very much necessary for not only half the world's internet users today but more than half, probably, of the future users as the internet continues to spread."

Icann, set up by the US government, was founded in 1998 to oversee the development of the net.

Last month, after years of criticism, the US government eased its control over the non-profit body.

It signed a new agreement that gave Icann autonomy for the first time. The agreement came into effect on 1 October and puts it under the scrutiny of the global "internet community".


BBC NEWS | Technology | Internet addresses set for change
 

RAM

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Hebrew, Hindi, other scripts get Web address nod

Hebrew, Hindi, other scripts get Web address nod


SEOUL, South Korea — The nonprofit body that oversees Internet addresses approved Friday the use of Hebrew, Hindi, Korean and other scripts not based on Latin characters in a decision that could make the Web dramatically more inclusive.

The board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers — or ICANN — voted to allow such scripts in so-called domain names at the conclusion of a weeklong meeting in Seoul, South Korea's capital.

The decision by the board's 15 voting members was unopposed and welcomed by applause and a standing ovation. It followed years of debate and testing.
washingtonpost.com


The result clears the way for governments or their designees to submit requests for specific names, likely beginning Nov. 16. Internet users could start seeing them in use early next year, particularly in Arabic, Chinese and other scripts in which demand has been among the highest, ICANN officials say.

"This represents one small step for ICANN, but one big step for half of mankind who use non-Latin scripts, such as those in Korea, China and the Arabic speaking world as well as across Asia, Africa, and the rest of the world," Rod Beckstrom, ICANN's CEO, said ahead of the vote.

Domain names — the Internet addresses that end in ".com" and other suffixes — are the key monikers behind every Web site, e-mail address and Twitter post.

Since their creation in the 1980s, domain names have been limited to the 26 characters in the Latin alphabet used in English — A-Z — as well as 10 numerals and the hyphen. Technical tricks have been used to allow portions of the Internet address to use other scripts, but until now, the suffix had to use those 37 characters.

That has meant Internet users with little or no knowledge of English might still have to type in Latin characters to access Web pages in Chinese or Arabic. Although search engines can sometimes help users reach those sites, companies still need to include Latin characters on billboards and other advertisements.

Now, ICANN is allowing those same technical tricks to apply to the suffix as well, allowing the Internet to be truly multilingual.

Many of the estimated 1.5 billion people online use languages such as Chinese, Thai, Arabic and Japanese, which have writing systems entirely different from English, French, German, Indonesian, Swahili and others that use Latin characters.

"This is absolutely delightful news," said Edward Yu, CEO of Analysys International, an Internet research and consulting firm in Beijing.

The Internet would become more accessible to users with lower incomes and education, said Yu, who was speaking before the widely expected decision.

Countries can only request one suffix for each of their official languages, and the suffix must somehow reflect the name of the country or its abbreviation.

Non-Latin versions of ".com" and ".org" won't be permitted for at least a few more years as ICANN considers broader policy questions such as whether the incumbent operator of ".com" should automatically get a Chinese version, or whether that more properly goes to China, as its government insists.

ICANN also is initially prohibiting Latin suffixes that go beyond the 37 already-permitted characters. That means suffixes won't be able to include tildes, accent marks and other special characters.

And software developers still have to make sure their applications work with the non-Latin scripts. Major Web browsers already support them, but not all e-mail programs do.

In China, Guo Liang, a researcher who studies Internet use for the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the government's top think tank, questioned whether all Chinese will embrace the new domains.

Although the move will reflect linguistic and cultural diversity, Guo said, "for some users it might even be easier to type domains in Latin alphabets than Chinese characters."

China has already set up its own ".com" in Chinese within its borders, using techniques that aren't compatible with Internet systems around the world.

Most Chinese and Japanese computer users write characters in their native scripts by typing phonetic versions on a standard English keyboard.

China is among a handful of countries that has pushed hardest for official non-Latin suffixes and could be one of the first to make one available, said Tina Dam, the ICANN senior director for internationalized domain names. The other countries, she said, are Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

About 50 such names are likely to be approved in the first few years.

The Internet's roots are traced to experiments at U.S. universities in 1969 but it wasn't until the early 1990s that its use began expanding beyond academia and research institutions to the public.

The U.S. government, which funded much of the Internet's early development, selected ICANN in 1998 to oversee policies on domain names. ICANN, which has headquarters in the United States in Marina del Rey, California, was set up as a nonprofit with board members from around the world.

Beckstrom said Friday's approval is not simply aimed at enhancing convenience for Internet users using different scripts.

"It's also an issue of pride of people and their own culture and their own language, and a recognition that the Internet belongs to everyone," he told The Associated Press in an interview. "It's a shared resource. So I think it's a really exciting step for all of us

washingtonpost.com
 

Vladimir79

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Hell, the main reason I learnt English was so I could surf the Internet. Back in the day, there wasn't much Cyrillic content out there. Now I am going to have to hunt down my favourite Cyrillic based sites all over again.
 

AkhandBharat

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I now own the rights to the domains:
विज्ञानं.com (विज्ञानं = science)
अन्तरिक्ष.com अन्तरिक्ष = space)

:thank_you2::dance4:

:india:
 

tarunraju

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I frankly haven't come across a Hindi keyboard in the past five years. The last time I saw one, was with a journalist. The EN-US QWERTY keyboard is pretty much the standard here. Typing Hindi was farking tough!
 

AkhandBharat

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Use transliteration!


(inserting characters for stupid character limit in replies)
 

tarunraju

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Use transliteration!


(inserting characters for stupid character limit in replies)
Wouldn't you rather type in plain English than use transliteration? Besides if people are already using transliteration on social networking sites, what's the point in Hindi (script or typeset) on the internet?
 

AkhandBharat

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Wouldn't you rather type in plain English than use transliteration? Besides if people are already using transliteration on social networking sites, what's the point in Hindi (script or typeset) on the internet?
Depends on who I am communicating with. Transliteration works for me, because I can talk to my distant relatives in India in Devanagri script without a custom keyboard and use the same QUERTY keyboard on my laptop to talk in English to people who understand English. Two different sets of audiences.
 

tarunraju

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Depends on who I am communicating with. Transliteration works for me, because I can talk to my distant relatives in India in Devanagri script without a custom keyboard and use the same QUERTY keyboard on my laptop to talk in English to people who understand English. Two different sets of audiences.
What is your definition of transliteration? Mine (which is standard), is this:

Mera naam Tarun hain. (writing Hindi in English script, for example, is transliteration).
 

AkhandBharat

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What is your definition of transliteration? Mine (which is standard), is this:

Mera naam Tarun hain. (writing Hindi in English script, for example, is transliteration).
Writing Hindi in english script is not transliteration.

Transliteration is converting words (and sentences) from one alphabet (script) to another alphabet (script).

So, while I can type in English, It'll be converted in Devanagari script and displayed to another user.

So when you write "Mera naam Tarun hai" , it will be converted into "मेरा नाम तरुण है" by the transliteration software and displayed to both you and the other user you are communicating with. That works for me, since I can understand and use both English and Hindi.

Its a personal choice. You can use a hard or a soft devanagari keyboard if you want. I prefer transliteration, since it's easy and I don't have to think in Devanagari script to communicate.
 

tarunraju

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Writing Hindi in english script is not transliteration.

Transliteration is converting words (and sentences) from one alphabet (script) to another alphabet (script).
Didn't you just contradict yourself there?

:sarcastic:

"मेरा नाम तरुण है -> Mera Naam Tarun Hain" is Transliteration
"मेरा नाम तरुण है -> My name is Tarun" is Translation
 

AkhandBharat

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No, I didn't. You need to understand the difference between script and Alphabet. :sun_bespectacled:
 

tarunraju

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No, I didn't. You need to understand the difference between script and Alphabet. :sun_bespectacled:
Components of a script particular to a language the alphabet of the language. They're the same thing technically. I don't see your point.

In fact in your own definition, you backed me:

Transliteration is converting words (and sentences) from one alphabet (script) to another alphabet (script).
 

AkhandBharat

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Components of a script particular to a language the alphabet of the language. They're the same thing technically. I don't see your point.
Wrong! A script can be a superset of different languages. For e.g. Devanagari script is used in Hindi, Marathi and Nepali languages.

Regardless, your discussion with me was on the merits of using transliteration, which I have already laid out before you.
 

tarunraju

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Wrong! A script can be a superset of different languages. For e.g. Devanagari script is used in Hindi, Marathi and Nepali languages.

Regardless, your discussion with me was on the merits of using transliteration, which I have already laid out before you.
Wrong, you're twisting logic. A script and alphabet are technically the same thing, even if they're subsets or supersets of each other in contexts of different languages.

Besides you're deviating from the core argument, that of transliteration.

On social networking sites, people use Hindi transliterated to English/Roman script (which is, they type "mein theek hoon" instead of "मैं ठीक हूँ" for example). That eliminates the need for the Hindi/Devenagiri script on the internet, as typing in Devenagiri is tougher on the keyboard.

Transliteration is exactly what I said in the example I stated.
 

AkhandBharat

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Wrong, you're twisting logic. A script and alphabet are technically the same thing, even if they're subsets or supersets of each other in contexts of different languages.

Besides you're deviating from the core argument, that of transliteration.

On social networking sites, people use Hindi transliterated to English/Roman script (which is, typing "mein theek hoon" instead of "मैं ठीक हूँ" for example). That eliminates the need for the Hindi/Devenagiri script on the internet, as typing in Devenagiri is tougher on the keyboard.

Transliteration is exactly what I said in the example I stated.
You wrote the original statement in English script (using Devanagari syntax). That is where you went wrong. Transliteration is conversion to Hindi Script too (not just writing one language in the syntax of another).
 

tarunraju

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You wrote the original statement in English script (using Devanagari syntax). That is where you went wrong. Transliteration is conversion to Hindi Script too (not just writing one language in the syntax of another).
You seem to be confused between transliteration and translation. Transliteration is changing objects on a word-to-word basis from one script to another, depending on their phonetic relation. The objective of transliteration is not make someone who doesn't understand a language understand it, but rather, make someone see the words of a script he doesn't recognize on a script he does. That does not change sentence structure or syntax in any way.
 

AkhandBharat

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On social networking sites, people use Hindi transliterated to English/Roman script (which is, they type "mein theek hoon" instead of "मैं ठीक हूँ" for example). That eliminates the need for the Hindi/Devenagiri script on the internet, as typing in Devenagiri is tougher on the keyboard.
No, it doesn't eliminate Devanagari script on the internet. It eliminates the usage of a Devanagari keyboard. The script is still used because when you type something and press enter, It is converted from the English Script to the Devanagari Script and then sent across to the other person.
Transliteration is exactly what I said in the example I stated.
No it is not.

You seem to be confused between transliteration and translation. Transliteration is changing objects on a word-to-word basis from one script to another, depending on their phonetic relation. The objective of transliteration is not make someone who doesn't understand a language understand it, but rather, make someone see the words of a script he doesn't recognize on a script he does. That does not change sentence structure or syntax in any way.
Good, now we are getting somewhere. The scripts are changed. I don't care if they use phonetics or whatever. I can use it to communicate to someone in a different script without using the scripts' keyboard, and without typing in the other script. I never said anything about making someone understand a language. I said its easy to communicate for me without any extra aid in a different script to another person who only knows that other script.
 

tarunraju

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No, it doesn't eliminate Devanagari script on the internet. It eliminates the usage of a Devanagari keyboard. The script is still used because when you type something and press enter, It is converted from the English Script to the Devanagari Script and then sent across to the other person.
No it is not.
Incorrect. Transliteration extensively used on social networking sites and mobile phones are to make use of EN-US keyboards and mobile keypads that lack the key combination for our languages. What you're talking about is a code that basically transliterates.

People themselves transliterate what they intend to say in Hindi to the Roman script, and read it in the same Roman script for two reasons: EN-US is the most dominant keyboard in India, and that transliteration is easier than using a Hindi keyboard (where you have to perform to actions: type in a letter, and give it its liaison).


Good, now we are getting somewhere. The scripts are changed. I don't care if they use phonetics or whatever. I can use it to communicate to someone in a different script without using the scripts' keyboard, and without typing in the other script. I never said anything about making someone understand a language. I said its easy to communicate for me without any extra aid in a different script to another person who only knows that other script.
Good that you are finally understanding it.
 

AkhandBharat

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Incorrect. Transliteration extensively used on social networking sites and mobile phones are to make use of EN-US keyboards and mobile keypads that lack the key combination for our languages. What you're talking about is a code that basically transliterates.
The transliteration software uses EN-US keyboard, but it converts to another script. Therein lies the advantage. That is what I have been trying to get across to you in all my posts. I can use any script to write my thoughts and get it transliterated and displayed to another user in another script.

Digital Libraries: Glossary (1999)

People themselves transliterate things to the Roman script, for two reasons: EN-US is the most dominant keyboard in India, and that transliteration is easier than using a Hindi keyboard (where you have to perform to actions: type in a letter, and give it its liaison).




Good that you are finally understanding it.
Yes, transliteration is easier and it converts the message into another script. Good that you are understanding it too.
 

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