German letter Ö, does it make it an IDN?

[saucey]

Hi.

I want to reg a german name with the letter Ö, but in order to do this GoDaddy says I have to reg the word as an idn.

I don't have a "german character" keyboard. My question is... If I use my english character keyboard for all of the other letters and insert Ö in there as well... will type in traffic occur from Germany if I do it this way, or should the entire word be typed with a german character keyboard even though all of the other letters are the same in both languages except the Ö??

For instance... If I register a german name with my english keyboard with no odd letters in it, such as KRAUT, I can register it in .de and .com with no problem... but if I add the letter Ö in there... it becomes an idn. Are ALL german domains with this letter reg'd as idn's?

I hope you understand what I'm trying to say and can add further clarrification to this for me..

Thanks!

 

[Erdy]

Of course it is an idn. Any letter that is not an ASCII letter makes the whole domain an idn. Also there are other letters in German alphabet that are non ASCII such as ü. There are other languages besides German that use the Latin alphabet but have a few non ACSII letters as well.

Just a small side note, in Germany it is common to type ö as oe and ü as ue if only English characters are available. So Köln is typed as Koeln and München as Muenchen. This is common practice followed by even state departments in Germany.

If you ask me, idn's should have never been introduced. It is against the spirit of the Internet. People should be able to access easily any website from anywhere in the World. Germans did a good job by introducing that alternative spelling.

 

[saucey]

Perfectly answered! Thank -you very much!

Repped!

 

[Phio]

If you ask me, idn's should have never been introduced. It is against the spirit of the Internet. People should be able to access easily any website from anywhere in the World. Germans did a good job by introducing that alternative spelling.

erdinç.net is still available!

 

[Erdy]

Hello Phio,

This is a good example to explain my point. Erdinç is my real name and I'm a domainer for five years. So you would expect that I should register that idn domain. But I really don't care. If I build a website I want anybody from anywhere in the world be able to access it easily.

For that reason idn's don't make any sense to me. I even wrote an article in my language why idn's are useless in languages that use the Latin alphabet. I believe they were not intended for that use. For far eastern languages idn's might make sense. On the other in languages like German or Turkish where you have only a few non ASCII letters you can get away with ASCII spellings.

Germans have the phonetic equivalency officially recognised in their country. This means everybody knows there that oe is ö and ue is ü. It is a shame in Turkish we don't have that yet. ç is ch and ş is sh. We also have ü and ö as well. But if you spell them like this people think you are a kid trying to catch attention.

Anyway, I'm the owner of erdinc dot net and erdinc dot org. I'm using them for emails and I'm going to build a portfolio website to erdinc dot net very soon. I don't care at all for the idn version.

Cheers mate.
Erdinc

 

[dombastic]

"oe" is much more used in domain names than "ö"
the same is true for ue/e, ss/ß

the other german characters are identical with english characters
so you can use the english keyboard

 

[Phio]

Hello Phio,
If I build a website I want anybody from anywhere in the world be able to access it easily.

If you want a website that anyone in the world can access, it will have to be made up of numbers only. Hundreds of millions of cell phones have no english characters on them. And most of the internet usage will come from latest generation cell phones in the next 5 years, and it won't be in ascii.

For that reason idn's don't make any sense to me. I even wrote an article in my language why idn's are useless in languages that use the Latin alphabet.

I understand your points, but the turkish language has more than a few non-ascii characters, and even though the characters look like ascii, why not give the Turkish people the ability to type in domains in their own language. Why should all the content be written in Turkish, and the domains be in english? Just doesn't make sense to me at all.

I believe they were not intended for that use. For far eastern languages idn's might make sense. On the other in languages like German or Turkish where you have only a few non ASCII letters you can get away with ASCII spellings.

All countries, nations, and languages have had to get away with ascii, due to the slow upgrade of browsers. Most American companies are still stuck on IE6. Even though the technology has been available for 10 years, there has been discrimination, against non-english languages on the internet. Now that the browsers are available, why not let all peoples be able to type in domains in their own languages, without having to switch keyboards.

Germans have the phonetic equivalency officially recognised in their country. This means everybody knows there that oe is ö and ue is ü. It is a shame in Turkish we don't have that yet. ç is ch and ş is sh. We also have ü and ö as well. But if you spell them like this people think you are a kid trying to catch attention.

Germans, as well as any other language users have been forced into creating these standards. They are not needed anymore. And Germans have been buying up and using IDN domains for years. They are actually ahead of other countries in this respect.

I do understand where you're coming from, but the internet is changing...isn't it amazing that arabic, hindi, russian and chinese speakers etc., will be typing domains in their own language, and won't have to bother with english anymore.

Regards,

Phio

Here are the German IDNs that sold a few days ago. Roughly 1 out of 3 domains that sold were IDNs

Domainvermarkter Forum Live auction results | Domain Name News
zäune.de 9,000 € Fences
müsli.com 4,000 € Muesli
musterverträge.de 4,000 € Sample Contracts
augenärzte.de 3,600 € Eye Doctors
heizöl.com 2,700 € Heating Oil
haustür.de 2,400 € Front Door
hautärzte.de 2,200 € Skin Doctors
arbeitsunfähigkeit.de 1,800 € pending acceptance Inability to Work
massivhäuser.com 1,650 € (type of construction)
vergnügungspark.de 1,500 € Amusement Park
gewächshaus.de 1,350 € Greenhouse
funkgerät.de 1,200 € Radio
küche.info 1,100 € pending acceptance Kitchen
züge.de 1,000 € Trains
antiquitäten.info 1,000 € Antiques
glastür.de 1,000 € Glass Door
vitalität.de 900 € Vitality
brüssel.com 800 € Brussel
hörbuch.net 600 € Audio Book
freizeitkleidung.de 600 € Leisure Clothing
unterhaltungskünstler.de 550 € pending acceptance Entertainment Artist
gründer.com 500 € pending acceptance Founder
sonnenöl.de 440 € Sun Oil
gläubig.de 430 € Religious
büroausstattung.net 240 € Office Equipment
freizeitbäder.de 220 € Leisure Pools
gepäck.info 220 € Luggage
blumensträusse.com 180 € Flower Bouquets
basketbälle.com 150 € Basketballs
röhren.info 60 € Pipes
vergütung.info 10 € Compensation

 

[Erdy]

If you want a website that anyone in the world can access, it will have to be made up of numbers only. Hundreds of millions of cell phones have no english characters on them. And most of the internet usage will come from latest generation cell phones in the next 5 years, and it won't be in ascii.

The smart phones that have the qwerty keypad have all the ascii keys even in Germany or Turkey so there is never a problem for those people to type ascii characters. I don't know any country that uses the Latin script and doesn't have all ascii characters in their native keyboards or mobile keypads. Iphone style keypads or smart phones have all the ascii characters in all countries that use the Latin script. For instance I use the Turkish keyboard and in that keyboard I have letters like w, x, q even though they are not in our alphabet. If you buy any smart phone in Turkey or Germany it will have all ascii keys. You are confusing the issue with non Latin alphabets.

Check this map:
File:Latin alphabet world distribution.svg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Any person from any of those countries can travel to another of them and still have easy access.

I understand your points, but the turkish language has more than a few non-ascii characters, and even though the characters look like ascii, why not give the Turkish people the ability to type in domains in their own language. Why should all the content be written in Turkish, and the domains be in english? Just doesn't make sense to me at all.

I'm a Turkish Language Teacher and I've build some websites. Trust me it makes perfect sense. There are millions of Turks living in European countries where they don't have easy access to a Turkish keyboard. Your point would make sense if only for instance Germans living in Germany would access German websites. Other nationals living in Germany or Germans living abroad will create access problems. People go to work or another place where they have to use other computers than their own.

For instance I live in the UK and I don't always use my own computer to access the Internet. I sometimes use a computer in my workplace or library, a friend or Internet cafe. When I use a computer that has an English keyboard I can still write in Turkish forums or chat to Turkish friends using only ascii letters. It would be really annoying for me if I could do all that but not open a website easily or type a websites name to a friend. Luckily there is not a single website that I use that has an idn domain. The same is true for foreigners. There are some Turkish websites that foreigners need to access. Therefore many Turkish websites or German websites have English pages. From a web designers point of view I can tell you that it is very bad idea to have your English version on another domain. There are database, seo, hosting and update issues involved.

You can buy an idn domain for URL forwarding. I don't have an objection to that but building a website to an idn doesn't make sense if your language uses the Latin script. Your users will not come only from your native country or the user that come from your native country won't be only natives.

If your native languages is German or Turkish or another non-English language that uses the Latin script you will be familiar with limiting yourself to ascii characters in computer environment. If you don't do this you will eventually run into problems with some software on your computer or when you want to share the file with others. So if you speak such a language you will already have the habit of using ascii characters only in some situations.

 

[Phio]

You are confusing the issue with non Latin alphabets.

Oh, I thought you wanted a world wide audience. If that is the case number.com is your best bet. In 5-10 years 75 percent of the worlds cell phones will not have a qwerty keyboard on them. I do see your point about the latin cell usage, but I'm sure cell phones in Turkey will have a turkish keyboard on them in the future.

I'm a Turkish Language Teacher and I've build some websites. Trust me it makes perfect sense. There are millions of Turks living in European countries where they don't have easy access to a Turkish keyboard. Your point would make sense if only for instance Germans living in Germany would access German websites. Other nationals living in Germany or Germans living abroad will create access problems. People go to work or another place where they have to use other computers than their own.

For instance I live in the UK and I don't always use my own computer to access the Internet. I sometimes use a computer in my workplace or library, a friend or Internet cafe. When I use a computer that has an English keyboard I can still write in Turkish forums or chat to Turkish friends using only ascii letters.

Since you are fluent in Turkish let me ask you a couple of questions...

1. When you are in England using your friend's computer at a cafe, and writing people in Turkey, do you write in Turkish or use english characters because the chatroom or forum doesn't accept Turkish characters?

2. If you do type in Turkish, while in England, what do you use? Do you have Micosoft's Turkish IME installed?

3. Would you create a website using only English characters that was targeted to the Turkish market?

4. Would you rather own the domain gamzeözçelik or gamzeozcelik?

What I've noticed is that almost everyone who lives in a non-english latin country likes to write in their native language, regardless of how close to english it is.

It would be really annoying for me if I could do all that but not open a website easily or type a websites name to a friend. Luckily there is not a single website that I use that has an idn domain.

If you have a modern browser, you can open an IDN website, and send the link to a friend. Works just fine.

The same is true for foreigners. There are some Turkish websites that foreigners need to access. Therefore many Turkish websites or German websites have English pages. From a web designers point of view I can tell you that it is very bad idea to have your English version on another domain. There are database, seo, hosting and update issues involved.

I agree with this point.

You can buy an idn domain for URL forwarding. I don't have an objection to that but building a website to an idn doesn't make sense if your language uses the Latin script. Your users will not come only from your native country or the user that come from your native country won't be only natives.

In this case the English domain can be url forwarded to the IDN, and the IDN will be the base site. This makes much more sense to me.

If your native languages is German or Turkish or another non-English language that uses the Latin script you will be familiar with limiting yourself to ascii characters in computer environment. If you don't do this you will eventually run into problems with some software on your computer or when you want to share the file with others. So if you speak such a language you will already have the habit of using ascii characters only in some situations.

Yes the habit was forced upon the non-english latin speakers for the last 20 years. In countries like Turkey and Vietnam where it is obvious IDNs are needed, it won't take long before IDNs go viral. In Spanish and Portuguese countries, the need is not so great, and like you point out the need is not so great in Germany, but Germans love their IDNs.

 

[Erdy]

I don't think you understood what I said about cell phone keypads. Smart phones in Turkey have only Turkish keypads but the Turkish keypad has all English characters. Similarly the Turkish keyboard (for computers) has all English characters. This will be the case in the future as well since we have many loanwords such as website, sex and text where we keep the original spelling.

As for your questions:
1. "When you are in England using your friend's computer at a cafe, and writing people in Turkey, do you write in Turkish or use english characters because the chatroom or forum doesn't accept Turkish characters?"

If I can not type with Turkish characters I simply type with the closest English character instead. In other words I type in Turkish using ascii characters. You would use these: ç:c, ğ:g, ş:s, ç:cü:u, ö: o, ı:i. There are 6 non ascii characters. Even kids can read these texts (Turkish with ascii only) without any problem at all.

2. "If you do type in Turkish, while in England, what do you use? Do you have Micosoft's Turkish IME installed?"

It is the first time I have heard the term IME. I simply use my standard English operating system (windows xp home edition) and in the keyboard settings I choose Turkish Q keyboard, which is my keyboard. It looks like this: File:KB Turkey.svg - Wikimedia Commons

3. "Would you create a website using only English characters that was targeted to the Turkish market?"
If you are asking about website content: Of course not. Why would you do this?
If you are asking the domain name: Certainly I would. In fact I can not imagine the opposite.

4. "Would you rather own the domain gamzeözçelik or gamzeozcelik?"
There is no competition here. I would most definitely own gamzeozcelik.com. If you had offered 100 idn domains like gamzeözçelik.com I would still choose one gamzeozcelik.com.

In fact the ascii domains are so common in the radio when they say gamzeözçelik.com people will go to gamzeozcelik.com because even when we pronounce them properly we mean the ascii version. Similarly when I say erdinç dot net (pronounced as erdinch) native Turks will understand erdinc dot net.

Of course we like to write using our letters. You can write any text with your native letters but domain names and file names must be written in ascii because they will be accessed by those who don't use your native letters.

I think you have again misunderstood my reference about opening a website at work. Let's say I want to go to gamzeözçelik.com and I have only an English keyboard in front of me. How do I type the websites name? I don't know an easy way doing this that wouldn't be very annoying.

 

[dombastic]

i completely agree with Erdinc

and like you point out the need is not so great in Germany, but Germans love their IDNs.

i do not think so

 

[Phio]

Thanks Erdinç for your responses. If you can type in Turkish with your computer, you can type in a turkish domain name. Just as simple as that. You will also find that most of the good Turkish domains are already registered and many by natives in Turkey or the surrounding areas. You can choose a good Turkish keyword or GEO name and type it in your browser, and more than likely it will resolve.

Anyways, it's good to hear about the current thought in Turkey, regarding these internet issues.

Thanks,

Phio

 

[wot]

i do not think so

Oh yes they do

 

[dombastic]

Oh yes they do

maybe you are talking about domainers (who started later and therefore do not have non-IDNs)

most germans do not even know that you can use ö or ü in the domain name

 

[alex_d]

maybe you are talking about domainers (who started later and therefore do not have non-IDNs)

most germans do not even know that you can use ö or ü in the domain name

Take a look at the 7th post on this thread to show you that some of the more "aware" Germans do know about IDNs.

Alex

 

[dombastic]

Take a look at the 7th post on this thread to show you that some of the more "aware" Germans do know about IDNs.

it just confirms what i wrote

 

[Szise]

In 10 - 25 years anyone will know how to use accented characters, when the computer, the internet will be a part of the educational system which isn't right now in most countries, don't talk about Germany. (i never learned what a site is or php in school). I'm sure around 99% in my country don't know what DNS is and 99.9 % think is something stupid to pay even 1.000 $ for a domain or don't even know what a domain is. Also around 90% of the keyboards sold are US keyboards but things will change a lot in time.

 

[dombastic]

In 10 - 25 years anyone will know how to use accented characters, when the computer, the internet will be a part of the educational system which isn't right now in most countries, don't talk about Germany. (i never learned what a site is or php in school). I'm sure around 99% in my country don't know what DNS...

only programmers need to know php, not users of websites

only webmasters need to know what dns is, not users

it will never change (for the users)

 

[SeanPreston]

I'm not a big fan of IDN's, I think unless your taget country is somewhere that these letters are used as a normal way of life then good (as long as your not mixing with letters not standard to that country)

 

[Billidn]

80% of the world population does not read or write English, the IDN project is primarily aimed at this group of users.

That being said, having URLs in native languages that people can READ and more importantly REMEMBER is part of why idns are an important step for the internet to give users a better experience in their own native language. Being able to advertise with URLs that people can easily remember and type in to get that website information is going to be a huge step forward.

Imagine the Chinese had invented the internet and the ONLY way you could access URLs was Chinese characters. What would advertising agencies do to brand and make non-Chinese readers remember websites? That is why so many Chinese websites are made up of numbers, at least there was some chance people could remember or recall the site.

Now imagine that one day the Chinese decided to allow YOU (those that don't read Chinese) the chance to have URLs in English language (or your own native language) would you not find that to be a 1000% better experience for navigating the internet and creating website names for your customers? That is really how simple all this is... IDNs are for people that don't speak English and for companies to brand and market to customers in those markets. :cy:

 

[dombastic]

Imagine the Chinese had invented the internet...

can you imagine how chinese enter their characters?

according to wikipedia: educated chinese know about 4,000 characters
but they have even more characters
(if you do not know the character, you cannot write the word)

educated english, greek, russian knows only about 30 characters
what is 100% of the alphabet

obviously a notebook computer's keyboard cannot have thousands of keys

most of chinese use latin characters to enter chinese characters:
Pinyin method - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

so idn would not help them to avoid latin characters
it just blocks the rest of the world

 

[benzdorf]

Im sporting maerchen.tv which is the non umlaute way of spelling fairytale in german...

you should try reggen both to be secure..

 

[Phio]

can you imagine how chinese enter their characters?

here's an explanation of how Chinese type on the computer and cell phones:
Interesting Chinese: Typing In Chinese
No matter how you slice it, the outcome of whatever method used -- the text that appears on the screen is chinese.

 

[wot]

can you imagine how chinese enter their characters?

My wife is Chinese, she seems to cope reasonably well with that strange foreign language. She is pretty good at Japanese, Thai some Greek and almost flawless English.

Amazing what some of these "foreign" people can do, she can even text quicker in Chinese than I can in English.

Surprisingly she is rather pleased that she can now type her own language in to her browser, some people are just so easily pleased, I have been typing English in for years, no big deal.

:wave:

 

[dombastic]

here's an explanation of how Chinese type on the computer and cell phones:
Interesting Chinese: Typing In Chinese
No matter how you slice it, the outcome of whatever method used -- the text that appears on the screen is chinese.

you link shows "Pinyin Entry"
most popular method

entering in latin characters