Web Addresses goes Beyond Latin Languages
Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which is a non-profit body, has voted to introduce multilingual web address system capable of reading scripts of different languages. This is one of the biggest technological innovations in the internet system in past decades, which received final approval after years of debate and experimentation. So long web addresses used to be confined to twenty six Latin alphabets and ten numerals along with hyphen and “@”. But now web addresses can be written in languages like Hindi, Korean, Arabic, Chinese and other non Latin languages.
Though the new change will can be seen in November, 2009 but it will take some time to be implemented. With over thousands of characters involved and some of languages having similar characters will create lot of complexity and confusion. In order to manage this issue, top level domains consisting of country code will be implemented which will expand into generic top level domains. Every country will have a unique abbreviation which can be used as suffix. It is considered to be wiser to implement these changes slowly so as to avoid any kind of mess. A lot of new technologies are expected to emerge to support this internationalization of web and make this user friendly. Also much optimized and enhanced web browsers are expected to come up to support the new features being incorporated.
Also the security and legal part of it is to be taken care of much attention.
This new amendment is welcomed with positive responses. It is expected to create more spread of internet among surfers who has little or no knowledge or command over Latin languages. Also it will reach out people with lower incomes and education and will make internet more accessible. This is glocalization of internet will bring the World much closer and will increase the opportunities for businesses and associations across borders and also lead to more sharing of resources over internet.
