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MARINA DEL REY, Calif.: Hebrew and Amharic speakers now have dedicated wiki pages to share their experiences as a part of the global evaluation of Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) being done by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

"Since its launch in October 2007, the IDN wiki has helped ICANN and the Internet community look at exactly how IDNs operate in the root, and how different software handles domain names in characters from different scripts," said Tina Dam, ICANN’s IDN Program Director. "We’re hoping that Internet users who understand Hebrew and Amharic will access these wiki pages and share their experiences."

The IDN wiki was initially based on 11 example.test domains in Arabic, Persian, Chinese (simplified and traditional), Russian, Hindi, Greek, Korean, Yiddish, Japanese and Tamil. The wiki allows Internet users to establish their own subpages with their own names in their own language such as example.test/yourname.

Though the new languages will not be used for translations of example.test in the Internet’s root, they will be used at the fourth level (after the top level “org”, the second level “icann”, and the third level “idn”) so users can have dedicated wiki pages. These language extensions to the wiki are available at http://am.idn.icann.org and http://he.idn.icann.org.

As well, with the Hebrew addition, since there is a .test TLD label in Hebrew script, an additional address has been assigned in the Hebrew language — http://דוגמא.טעסט. (If this link doesn’t work in your browser, you can access an embedded link at http://idn.icann.org/Hebrew_script.)

"We have been able to add these languages to the wiki because of interest from the community and the availability of a volunteer moderator fluent in the language to spend time with the wiki support team to localize the language area and work with users," added Dam. "Anyone interested in adding new languages can contact me directly at tina.dam@icann.org."

About ICANN:

ICANN is responsible for the global coordination of the Internet's system of unique identifiers like domain names (like .org, .museum and country codes like .uk) and the addresses used in a variety of Internet protocols that help computers reach each other over the Internet. Careful management of these resources is vital to the Internet's operation, so ICANN's global stakeholders meet regularly to develop policies that ensure the Internet's ongoing security and stability. ICANN is an internationally organized, public benefit non-profit company. For more information please visit: www.icann.org .

Media Contacts:

Jason Keenan
Media Adviser, ICANN
Ph: +1 310 382 4004
E: jason.keenan@icann.org

International: Andrew Robertson
Edelman (London)
Ph: +44 7921 588 770
E: andrew.robertson@edelman.com