[council] Bengali and Khmer Added to IDN Testing Process

[Glen de Saint Géry]

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http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-09oct08-en.htm
Bengali and Khmer Added to IDN Testing Process

Internationalized Domain Name wikis now cover 17 languages

9 October 2008

MARINA DEL REY, Calif.: The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers efforts to bring the languages of the world online have expanded with the addition of two new languages — Bengali and Khmer — to the global testing process.

"Each time we add a new language to the wiki, we open up the chance for more characters to be tested, and for more people to be involved and offer us input and ideas," said Tina Dam, Director of ICANN's Internationalized Domain Name Program "Since we launched the wiki with 11 languages in October 2007, we have added six new languages. We will continue to add languages whenever language communities come forward that can support a wiki."

The new Bengali and Khmer wiki pages are available off the main IDN wiki page, idn.icann.org, and through the following links:

Bengali
bn.idn.icann.org
বাংলা .idn.icann.org
xn--54b7fta0cc.idn.icann.org

Khmer :
http://km.idn.icann.org
ភាសាខ្មែរ.idn.icann.org
http://xn--j2e7beiw1lb2hqg.idn.icann.org

Because the addresses and some content display in fonts that many Internet users may not have loaded on their computers, ICANN has added a font page to the IDN wiki. It allows users to see if the fonts are loaded — and if they aren't to download them. The font page is at: http://idn.icann.org/Fonts.

ICANN is working with the larger Internet community to bring IDNs online at the top level. This means that instead of the current Roman characters available for domain names, close to 100,000 characters from the languages of the world would be available.


"Our goal is for IDNs to be available when the application period for new top level domains are launched in the second quarter of 2009," Dam added. "IDNs will help people have their name in their language, and these wiki pages are an important step in testing how IDNs work."

Glen de Saint Géry
GNSO Secretariat
gnso.secretariat at gnso.icann.org
http://gnso.icann.org