The United Nations Internet Governance Forum, which is being hosted by Egypt at the Sharm el-Sheikh resort in Cairo, will see the launch of world’s first Arabic internet domain which has been developed by the country.

The Telecommunication Ministry of Egypt said that website owners will have the option of adding ‘.msr’ which means ‘.Egypt’ in the Arabic script instead of the traditional ‘.com’ or ‘.com.eg’.

According to the experts, 65% of the internet users in Egypt are not versed with the English language and this new development will make surfing the internet rather easy for them.

Recently, ICANN, the organisation which controls the internet laws, agreed to allow non-Latin domain names giving way to domains in Chinese, Korean and other scripts. The decision has been welcomed by many governments across the world where people are not familiar with English as this allows more of their citizens to access the internet.

It is important to note that the advocacy group, Reporters Without Borders, conveyed its feelings by criticising the decision of letting Egypt host such an important United Nations forum.

They said that the future of the internet is being decided in a country which has been known for its police harassment of internet bloggers.

Our Comments

Non English internet is set to boom as the number of foreign language speakers significantly goes up. This will also mark the end of the hegemony of Latin languages online with some very significant consequences.

Related Links

Egypt launches Arabic web domain

(BBC NEWS)

Egypt to apply for first Arabic domain name

(The Associated Press)

Internet Governance Forum kicks off in Egypt

(XINHUA NET)

Internet to speak Arabic: Egypt

(Google News)