[EURO-Discuss] IDN Wikis Go Live - in 11 Languages - http://idn.icann.org

Nick Ashton-Hart nick.ashton-hart at icann.org
Mon Oct 15 09:59:57 EDT 2007


 From http://icann.org/announcements/announcement-15oct07.htm

My Name, My Language, My Internet: IDN Test Goes Live
ICANN launches global test of Internationalized Domain Names

15 October 2007

ICANN is celebrating the ability of people to get "My name, My  
Language. My Internet" wiki pages with the launch of the IDN  
evaluation with T-Shirts displaying example.test in the 11 languages.
MARINA DEL REY, Calif.: Internet users around the globe can now  
experiment with their name in their language on their Internet with  
today’s launch of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and  
Numbers live testing of Internationalized Domain Names in 11 languages.

“This is one of the most exciting times yet in the development of  
IDNs,” said Dr Paul Twomey, ICANN’s President and CEO. “Internet  
users who speak the 11 languages of the test can play a key role in  
testing how IDNs operate, and help us move toward full implementation  
for all the languages of the world.”

Internet users around the globe can now to access wiki pages with the  
domain name example.test in the 11 test languages -- Arabic, Persian,  
Chinese (simplified and traditional), Russian, Hindi, Greek, Korean,  
Yiddish, Japanese and Tamil. The wikis will allow Internet users to  
establish their own subpages with their own names in their own  
language -- one suggestion is: example.test/yourname.

ICANN has also put a video explaining the evaluation process on  
YouTube, and available on the ICANN website.

The wiki pages can be accessed by typing example.test in the  
characters of one of the 11 languages, or by going to http:// 
idn.icann.org.

“These wikipages are key to the test. We want to know how the URL  
displays in the Internet browser, if it works when you cut and paste  
it into the body of an email to a friend, and how all of this impacts  
the root zone,” Dr Twomey added.

The 11 evaluation wikis will remain online until IDNs are fully  
implemented and the first top-level domain is introduced in the  
evaluation language.

The full introduction of IDNs will mean that people can write the  
whole of a domain name in the characters used to write their own  
language. Presently you can only use these characters before the dot,  
so .com, .net, .org and the like can only be written in characters  
from basic Latin. IDNs will change this so that literally tens of  
thousands of characters will be available to the world.


-- 
Regards,

Nick Ashton-Hart
Director, At-Large
ICANN
Main Tel: +33 (450) 40 46 88
USA Tel: +1 (202) 657-5460
Fax: +41 (22) 594-85-44
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email: nick.ashton-hart at icann.org
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