sarcle
4th January 2010, 02:28 AM
The debut of Internet domain names entirely in non-Latin alphabets should be liberating for speakers of Russian, or Chinese, and a host of other languages. These users, because of a rules change by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, can finally be free from Western technological dominance while surfing the Web. Yet the impending debut of Web addresses that use only the Cyrillic alphabet is meeting surprising resistance in Russia, as The New York Times reported recently. Internet users and Web companies have expressed fears that the change could isolate Russians in a cyber-ghetto and make it easier for government officials to restrict visits to sites with non-Cyrillic addresses.
These fears may be overstated. While repressive governments will surely seek to limit access to sites they view as subversive - no matter which alphabet the Web addresses are written in - resourceful Internet users will always seek out ways around such censorship. So if anything, Western free-speech advocates should worry more about the effects of the new rule closer to home.
Since the dawn of the Internet, English speakers have had the luxury of visiting websites in far-off countries without having to modify their keyboards to accommodate someone else’s alphabets. And many overseas website developers will keep on using the Latin alphabet, if only through force of habit. But the Web needs to find its own equilibrium, without any artificial requirement that Latin characters be a sine qua non. As nations such as China and India gain economic power proportionate to their vast populations, the inevitable outpouring of sites with non-Latin addresses will make it more challenging for Western Internet users to click around. The sooner Americans and Europeans get familiar with once-exotic characters, the better.http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/File-Based_Image_Resource/dingbat_story_end_icon.gif
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2010/01/04/internet_whats_yahoo_in_cyrillic/
:yes:
These fears may be overstated. While repressive governments will surely seek to limit access to sites they view as subversive - no matter which alphabet the Web addresses are written in - resourceful Internet users will always seek out ways around such censorship. So if anything, Western free-speech advocates should worry more about the effects of the new rule closer to home.
Since the dawn of the Internet, English speakers have had the luxury of visiting websites in far-off countries without having to modify their keyboards to accommodate someone else’s alphabets. And many overseas website developers will keep on using the Latin alphabet, if only through force of habit. But the Web needs to find its own equilibrium, without any artificial requirement that Latin characters be a sine qua non. As nations such as China and India gain economic power proportionate to their vast populations, the inevitable outpouring of sites with non-Latin addresses will make it more challenging for Western Internet users to click around. The sooner Americans and Europeans get familiar with once-exotic characters, the better.http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/File-Based_Image_Resource/dingbat_story_end_icon.gif
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2010/01/04/internet_whats_yahoo_in_cyrillic/
:yes: