ICANN Approves IDNs for China, Taiwan, Thailand, Sri Lanka…

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ICANN Approves IDNs for China, Taiwan, Thailand, Sri Lanka…

	By John Yunker Author and founder of Byte Level Research
	April 04, 2010 Views: 13,940 Comments: 6

A few weeks back I asked Where is China’s IDN?

ICANN not only answered my question about China, but also about a host of additional countries (and territory) that had applied for fast-track IDNs.

Here are the most recent IDN (string evaluation) approvals:

China (cn): ?? (traditional); ?? (simplified)
Hong Kong (hk): ??
Palestinian Territory (ps): ??????
Qatar (qa): ???
Sri Lanka (lk): ???? (Sinhalese); ?????? (Tamil)
Taiwan (tw): ?? (simplified); ?? (traditional)
Thailand (th): ???
Tunisia (tn): ????

For the full list of IDNs now in the ICANN pipeline, I’ve created a page here. It also explains why you may not be able to view all of the scripts on this blog post.

ICANN says it has given preliminary approval for IDNs in 19 countries across 11 languages. Note that this means that these IDNs have passed the string review, which is arguably the most difficult phase. But there is still one stage left before those domains can go live. And don’t get me started on the challenges that some of these domains will pose to existing web browsers—that’s the topic of a future post.

By John Yunker, Author and founder of Byte Level Research

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Comments

Numbers? Jon Lawrence – Apr 6, 2010 2:56 AM

John - I’m not sure how you get to 19 countries and 11 languages.

I count six languages:
- Arabic
- Chinese
- Russian
- Sinhalese
- Tamil
- Thai

from 12 countries:
- China
- Egypt
- Hong Kong
- Palestine
- Qatar
- Russia
- Saudi Arabia
- Sri Lanka
- Taiwan
- Thailand
- Tunisia
- UAE

making a total of 15 strings that have passed through the string evaluation phase.

# 1 Reply | Link | Report Problems

Hi Jon -- Very good point. I John Yunker – Apr 6, 2010 3:00 AM

Hi Jon -- Very good point. I was quoting ICANN and my assumption was that they hadn't yet published all of the fast-track applications (or they had their counts wrong). But I'll look into it some more. Thanks.

# 2 Reply | Link | Report Problems

Fair enough... Jon Lawrence – Apr 6, 2010 3:08 AM

I knew I'd seen those numbers somewhere before. The following are countries I'm aware of that have publicly announced their intention to apply but have yet to pass string evaluation (if they have actually submitted their application): Bangladesh Bulgaria Serbia South Korea India Jordan Malaysia I don't believe Japan has yet submitted an application as they're still working out who should operate the registry (though that really isn't a reason not to apply for the string). They are undoubtedly also a few more Arabic-speaking countries yet to come.

# 3 Reply | Link | Report Problems

19/11 is current stats for Fast Track Tina Dam – Apr 6, 2010 6:47 PM

We update them usually monthly at http://www.icann.org/en/topics/idn/

# 4 Reply | Link | Report Problems

full list of strings approved in Fast Track String Evaulation Tina Dam – Apr 6, 2010 6:51 PM

is available here: http://www.icann.org/en/topics/idn/fast-track/string-evaluation-completion-en.htm

Please note that the requesters still need to go through String Delegation before the IDN ccTLDs are live in the DNS. And, some are awaiting the synchronized IDN ccTLD evaulation before they can initiate the String Delegation.

# 5 Reply | Link | Report Problems

Thanks Tina. John Yunker – Apr 7, 2010 12:44 AM

Thanks Tina.

# 6 Reply | Link | Report Problems

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