Soon it will be possible to write an Internet address in Korean, Hebrew, Arabic and many other languages that do not use the Western alphabet.
At the moment, you can write a Web page using any script you choose, but the address of that page requires at least some knowledge of the alphabet used in Western Europe, the United States and other predominantly English-speaking countries.
This issue, generally referred to as internationalised domain names, will be discussed during the next phase of the World Summit on the Information Society.
At the moment it is not possible to write a Web address or URL unless you use the alphabet commonly used for English. For those accustomed to using the Western alphabet, it might not seem very important to use other scripts, but for those who prefer to write in languages other than English, this is a sore point.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann), the body responsible for coordinating domain name registries, has come under fire recently, accused of dragging its feet in formalising new character sets for non-English domain names.
Icann, describing itself as a purely technical organisation, says that it does not have the capacity to decide on language standards, nor does it believe that linguistic decisions are part of its mandate.
But organisations that administer domain names in various countries such as Germany, Japan and Korea have taken the initiative and are already well on their way to fixing language tables for their domain name addresses.
New language tables have been published for inspection and discussion on the Icann website, at www.icann.org/ — Hana