When will IDN's overtake "English" domains?

[wot]

Will IDN's ever overtake ascii names in popularity :?

It is apparent that although english is currently the language of the internet it is certainly not the most spoken language in the world and is well behind Mandarin Chinese & Spanish.

There are many other languages, Hindi, Russian, Japanese to name just a few so it makes sense that now those languages are available for natives to use and are being actively promoted by icann and the host countries the chances are they will.

Look at it logically, if you are a Chinese person which language would you prefer to use to access the internet e.g. given the option would you prefer to type in (domain name) in your own language or a foreign language :?

Personally I do not see it happening for many years, if at all, as it makes sense to have an "international" language for general communication but I would certainly expect to see a major take up of local language domain names for local businesses and for international companies wanting to do business in the various countries.

The reverse also applies, "foreign" businesses wanting to expand outside their own country would need to have an internationally recognised domain name - that is more than likely going to be in english- or is it :?

What do you think :?

 

[shockie]

i would prefer english because it is much more efficient. actually, any of the latin-based languages (english, french, spanish, russian, etc) should be more efficient and better catered to the computer/information age. this means that people around the world will more than likely (continue to) adopt one of those as the common language.

the asian character-based languages definitely take longer to write (by hand) even with the simplified forms, and also take longer to write on a computer. heck, even the word "computer" takes two words/characters in chinese and i could type the word "computer" with my left pinky faster. a lot of the everyday conjunctions are two words too, including: and; but and; because.

other than speed/efficiency, the other problem is legibility/readability. from a foot and a half away i can still read 12 point font, but chinese words/characters become squares at that distance.

so until amazing technology exists to cheaply create very accurate interfaces with a computer that will surpass keyboard-usage, my bets are on a latin-based language - probably english.

 

[brianlai]

If there is an IDN keyboard, then IDN will win

IDN limits the people going in the website

 

[-REECE-]

I think IDN's will get a lot more popular in the near future.

Personally, I prefer IDN.IDN to IDN.com

 

[alex_d]

I think IDNs are definately the future for non-English speaking countries. However, I don't think that IDNs are going to suddenly become a huge hit any time soon. It will take time, but I am sure that those who have already invested in IDNs will get rewarded ten-fold in the future.

I think domainers getting into IDNs are gonna need a lot more patience than compared to dealing with ASCII names.

Just my thoughts.

Alex

 

[fxtrader28]

I personally think that english domains will never be overtaken by any IDN.
A possible threat could be the creation of a cyrillic internet and chinese IDN's due to the rapid growth of China.
Check this link http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2008/06/11/russian-president-wants-cyrillic-internet-domain

 

[Sleepys]

Personally I do not see it happening for many years, if at all, as it makes sense to have an "international" language for general communication but I would certainly expect to see a major take up of local language domain names for local businesses and for international companies wanting to do business in the various countries.

This is one of the main factors holding idns back (that and early adoption of latin chars). English has become the international language, and it seems that every country you go to has a majority of the population now able to speak English. As a result it will be a seriously long time, if ever, until one of the foreign languages beats out English. But, I do think that there is a good possibility that IDN itself, meaning combining all of the possible idn languages, could overtake English within the next 10 years. That may mean that these huge multi-million dollar deals will still occur more often with English names. :imho:

 

[shockie]

that would be a shame.

imagine everyone in the world using languages that are less efficient monday to friday for conducting business. i'm sure that some of those languages are culturally and historically significant, but let's leave it for poetry and art and the weekends... for the sake of humanity... lol.

 

[tipsfromthetop]

Good topic but English is used to communicate in top level politics and main communications around the world. So i dont see IDNS taking over ASCII anytime soon if ever especially as we are now in our 8th year that IDNS was first introduced by Verisign and theres still not a lot of movement in this area. Fantastic idea but i really think its like the arguement what is better Betamax or VHS of years gone by ... sure betamax was better in everyway but VHS was the one used.

As for English not being the no1 language well Sure China has 1.1 billion people speaking this language there language but you shouldnt gauge your findings on that. It should be the number of countries that speak 1 common vocal language and this and this alone is the deciding factor on how people communicate in this world.

See the following.

The following is a list of languages in terms of the number of countries where each is spoken. The number that follows is the total number of countries that use that language (from Weber, 1997):

English (115)
French (35)
Arabic (24)
Spanish (20)
Russian (16)
German (9)
Mandarin (5)
Portuguese (5)
Hindi/Urdu (2)
Bengali (1)
Japanese (1)

After weighing six factors (number of primary speakers, number of secondary speakers, number and population of countries where used, number of major fields using the language internationally, economic power of countries using the languages, and socio-literary prestige), Weber compiled the following list of the world's ten most influential languages:
(number of points given in parentheses)

English (37)
French (23)
Spanish (20)
Russian (16)
Arabic (14)
Chinese (13)
German (12)
Japanese (10)
Portuguese (10)
Hindi/Urdu (9)

So as you can see English language is a long way off not being used as the main language for internet comms or international social/business and this in turn will boost the ROI in english written domains.

just my thoughts..

Steve

 

[sankalpsingh]

In my view,where Development Ratio is high, whether in IDN's or in English Domains.

 

[thefabfive]

The bottom line is that people prefer to communicate in their native language. Take a look at most Chinese websites and you will find the domain name in English (or numbers) and the content in Chinese. People in China don't use English to communicate with each other. Regardless of the fact that English is the "international language of business".

The most relevent statistic for IDN is the number of speakers of a particular language on the internet. Those numbers, be they Russian, Chinese, Arabic, etc, have been increasing at a very high rate.

Russians or Chinese are not going to use English to go online and find a local flower shop.

 

[shockie]

Weber compiled the following list of the world's ten most influential languages:
(number of points given in parentheses)

English (37)
French (23)
Spanish (20)
Russian (16)
...

yikes, weber was right on to my examples above.

 

[wot]

Ah well, a genuine discussion between idn and ascii gets moved to the idn section when it is a clearly a "domain" name discussion.

Definitely indicates that if there is any mention of idn , .com even, then they are not considered worthy of general discussion even as a comparison.

Anyway, some good points guys and it will not be long before the squiggly character thingies are leading the charge and everybody will want to talk and compare.

 

[weblord]

i hope not. here in our country we have 2 most spoken/written language that is English and Filipino we understood that Filipino can't be international with us, since Filipinos have different dialects as well and could be quite confusing for other provinces for us to adapt Filipino so we use English here.

I think it will "take off" since anything unique will do in the internet but to overtake the english domain is an impossibility. :imho:

 

[wot]

I think it will "take off" since anything unique will do in the internet but to overtake the english domain is an impossibility. :imho:

See the last few words of the first line of my signature


Do not many of the Filipino words incorporate "spanish" :?

 

[Phio]

My prediction is that Simplified Chinese will pass up English Content on the Internet within 2-3 years.


Currently a common character in simp. chinese '中' gets 3,850,000,000 results

and in english 'a' gets 19,860,000,000 (I'll check again in a year)

As far as IDNs are concerned, I wouldn't bother with them for another year or so

How do you spell "suggestibility"?

 

[weblord]

that was in the 70's and 80's
most of our spanish words have equivalent tagalog translation in this time and age.

and our alfabeto (spanish for alphabet) is now read as Alphabet and we have the F, Q and V English words, we're slowly moving from spanish and from a man who has spanish blood take a look at my surname, I'm adapting English as my second language.

See the last few words of the first line of my signature


Do not many of the Filipino words incorporate "spanish" :?

 

[wot]

As far as IDNs are concerned, I wouldn't bother with them for another year or so

How do you spell "suggestibility"?

Yep, stay away.

sirjesterbility :wave:

that was in the 70's and 80's
most of our spanish words have equivalent tagalog translation in this time and age.

and our alfabeto (spanish for alphabet) is now read as Alphabet and we have the F, Q and V English words, we're slowly moving from spanish and from a man who has spanish blood take a look at my surname, I'm adapting English as my second language.

"Walang problema" :blink:

 

[weblord]

salamat naman naintindihan mo.
"thanks you understood" :lol:
you surprised me.

"Walang problema" :blink:

 

[Phio]

Filipino words in general use standard ascii characters, unlike in Việt Nam where accents are relied on heavily. :wave: