Interesting IDNs

[André Schappo]

Interesting IDNs

I recently started a forum thread entitled "Interesting IDNs". I will continue to develop this thread and I am hoping for contributions from others, including members of this list. Before I give you the link there is some background information I should give you in order that you can better appreciate the thread.

IDNs (Internationalized Domain Names) are Domain Names written in non Latin Scripts. They can consist of most any script, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai …etc… Here is an example Thai IDN ➜ แว๊ฟ.ไทย IDNs are one aspect of internationalisation of Computer Science. There are Computer Science technical challenges to making IDNs work because the Domain Name System was built with only LDH (Letters, Digits and Hyphen, which are a subset of ASCII, which in turn is a subset of the Latin script) characters in mind for Domain Names.

Finding IDNs is a fairly easy task. Select a non Latin script TLD (Top Level Domain) and search for Domain names having that TLD. Wikipedia has an article listing both LDH and internationalised TLDs en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top-level_domains ไทย is the country code TLD (ccTLD) for Thailand. One can find Thai script IDNs using the site search command google.com/search?q=site:.ไทย

So, finding and posting IDNs is easy but I entitled the thread "Interesting IDNs" and not just "IDNs". Therefore the task becomes more challenging but also much more interesting and rewarding. One will encounter IDN websites where one knows nothing/little about the language and nothing/little about the culture. Firstly one needs to recognise that there is something interesting about the site and then one has to do the research to describe what is interesting. I make extensive use of google translate, wikipedia and searching of the internet to find interesting IDN websites and to describe, in English, what is interesting. Unfortunately I am only fluent in English and so am forced to write the descriptions in English only, well, apart from short sentences, short phrases or individual words. Finding "Interesting IDNs" is a challenging exploration of other Cultures (I include language(s) in uppercase Cultures). My, at time of writing, most recent fascinating discovery is Gopang Story 곱창이야기 which I briefly describe in the aforementioned forum thread.

I think a really good student (not just Computer Science students) assignment would be: 〖 Find an interesting IDN website in a language and culture you know nothing about. You should provide an extensive explanation/description of what makes the IDN and itʼs website interesting to you.〗

Most every UK University has promotional items/memorabilia/stash. It is usually the predictable Hoodies, T-shirts, mugs, scarves, beanies ...etc... One of my IDN finds, which I put on the thread, is promotional fans. They can print text and images onto blank fans. It seems to me that there is a lot of potential for University promo fans. They would be something a little different to the standard predictable stash and there is quite a lot of space on a fan to print promo content.

With my students I frequently emphasise the importance of "completing the internationalisation equation" ie has one fully thought of and realised all the ways in which something can be internationalised. So, for example, I have encountered posts/articles advocating bilingualism/multilingualism which are written in English only. Completing the internationalisation equation would entail writing the same info in more than one language. I make a related joke on the thread☺️

Sheldon Cooper is a character in the American comedy TV series "Big Bang Theory" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Bang_Theory

... and here is the link to the thread idnforums.com/forums/35988-interesting-idns.html I only give a brief description of what makes them interesting to me. My descriptions could, of course, be much more extensive. Currently I am focused on the South Korea 항국 TLD. I intend to encompass many internationalised TLDs and hence many languages and cultures. It will take me quite a number of years to achieve that ☺️ I will learn much in this journey.

If any of you would like to contribute to this thread me email or tweet me with your contribution. I will, of course, give full credit to you in the post. If you want to contribute the thread directly then you can become a member of IDNforums as it is open for all to join.

André Schappo

twitter.com/andreschappo

PS. In addition to having a passion for Computer Science Internationalisation, I have a passion for bright cheerful colours twitter.com/andreschappo/status/1275109323992170496 ☺️