I read this week that at last, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has approved a new policy to allow domain names to include up to 100,000 new characters from all the world’s languages, enabling more than half of the world’s population who do not use Latin based script to have better access to the Internet. It will include for example, 28 characters from the Arabic alphabet and 22 from the Hebrew alphabet.

But it was only on further investigation that I realised just how much of a big deal this move really is for businesses across the globe. Did you know that 40% of the world’s top countries (in terms of Internet usage) do not use Roman script and that China is the top ranking country for Internet usage, making up 20% of Internet users worldwide? Reports suggest that this move will make the web more accessible to billions of people worldwide and is being hailed as the biggest technological change to the Internet since its creation 40 years ago.

Seriously, this move could open the door for businesses to tap into huge new markets of customers who don’t currently access the Internet because of language problems.
Web localisation is becoming big business and there is a growing trend to translate company websites into the different languages relevant to their customers (both current and potential) and to adopt domains ending with country codes (such as .uk, .cn and .fr). This move will enable businesses to reach many people around the world that don’t use Roman character keyboards in their daily lives, but businesses will need to be quick to ensure they get their preferred domain names and translate their websites into the appropriate languages.

The Internet has until now been dominated by Latin letters and for some looking to capitalise on the new domain names that will now be available, it may not be an easy transition. This is why localisation and not just straight translation is so important in ensuring that the message is communicated correctly and as intended across languages and cultures.
This move now makes it possible to take multilingualism online a step further but website localisation is as much about culture as language itself and takes into account variations in dialect, country buzzwords, ‘slang’ terminology as well as the expected changes to dates, time etc to draw up those all important key words. It also takes into account the significance of colours in various countries and inter-country conflicts, which might influence the placing of different countries within a list or the site map for example. That is why it is always worth seeking advice from a translation specialist before embarking on any web localisation projects.