Under his leadership, Singapore hosted the first Chinese Website in 1994, the first Tamil Web site using Tamil scripts in 1995, and a multilingual web site in 1996. But his major contribution to the languages is the concept called 'internationalized domain name' (IDN) with which languages can be used to type domain names. He was given 'Tamil Internet Frontier Award' by Tamilnadu Government at the occasion of 9th Tamil Internet Conference, World Classical Tamil Congress which held at Coimbatore recently.

It was a prestigious moment for Bhashaindia when Tan Tin Wee allowed an exclusive interview on language computing and especially on the history, development and scope of internationalized domain names. Here are the excerpts from his interview - 

 
Question: It is a happy moment for Bhashaindia to get an opportunity to talk to you Professor Tan Tin Wee. Can you please tell something about the concept, 'Internationalized Domain Name'?

Answer: Internationalized Domain Names (IDN) enable you to have a domain name expressed in the same language as your non-English (Hindi, Tamil or any language) website. That means, you can use non-ASCII characters in the place of English (latin) domain names.

Before exploring about the concept, 'Internationalized Domain Name', let us start the concept, 'domain name'. A domain name uniquely identifies an Internet Protocol (IP) resource such as a web site on the Internet. Domains are based on the Domain Name System (DNS). The most important purpose of domain names is to provide easily recognizable and memorizable names to numerically addressed websites. As of March 15, 2010 had 84 million domain names! But alas, one has to type using Latin characters for accessing websites!

Question: What was the reason behind regional languages left out in regard to domain names?

Answer: Historical dominance of the US and the ASCII character set as a lowest common denominator restricted non-English users from using the Net. The Internet is accessed by more people who do not use Latin languages and scripts than those who do. But nobody cared for them.

Question: Then, how the cries for regional language domain name started?

Answer: When Web pages started appearing with language content in 90s, the demand for language domain names grew. So, language lovers started pressurizing for 'Internationalized Domain Names'.

With the 83 percent of the world's population estimated to be non-English speaking, domain name has to be in their own languages. So, IDN was an important first step in bringing a useful Internet to the majority of the world's Internet users which were previously shut-out of using the Internet in their native language

IDN was originally proposed in December 1996 by Martin Durst. I am proud that it was under my leadership the experiments were conducted and finally IDN implemented. The system called Internationalizing Domain Names in Applications (IDNA) was adopted as a standard, and has been implemented in several top-level domains.

Question: Is it possible for a person to register and use 'internationalized domain names' now?

Answer: As I mentioned earlier, action plans were taken and religiously followed from 1998 onwards. To standardize the IDN system an organization called "Internet Consortium for Assigned Names and Numbers" (ICANN) formed.

It took 10 years for it to achieve the goals. In October 2009, ICANN approved the creation of internationalized country code top-level domains in the Internet that use the IDNA standard for native language scripts. In May 2010 the first IDN country code top-level domains were installed in the DNS root zone.

Now, there are companies like i-DNS.net support domain name registrations in more than 60 languages. This list will expand soon.

Question: That is great! So, we can expect Hindi, Tamil and Malayalam domain names soon to be used by the public. But, how language computing is going to get benefited by bringing Internet domain names in languages?

Answer: The basic concept of language computing is to bring the benefits of the computer to the masses. Every human being has the right to access the Internet in his own native language. Once an individual given this right or opportunity to access information across language barriers she/he becomes a more inclusive and enlightened citizen, and a consumer of all things especially information and knowledge. This is one of the great benefits that IDN will deliver.

Major population in the world is not familiar with English language. Without having minimal English language, it is very difficult for a person to access the resources on the Net. It is true there is regional language content on the Net. But, how can an individual access it? Without the knowledge of English, she/he can not type domain names (website address). Once we break this barrier, the entire population will start accessing and enjoying the benefits of the Net. They will start contributing to make their language rich on the Net. This is how, IDNs are going to help language computing.

Question: Like ASCII or Latin based domain name, e-mail ID is also another restriction before non-English speaking people. When will they get e-mail IDs in their own language?

Answer: Recently ICANN approved the introduction of IDNs at the top level. This removes the restriction of English-only alphabets in e-mail addresses. So, users can get e-mail IDs in their own languages now.

Question: As you are aware, Bhashaindia is catering informative content about language computing in most of the major Indian languages and English in its portal recently. Being language computing enthusiast and expert, how do you rate Bhashaindia’s efforts in Indic Language Computing? Is there any suggestions?

Answer: I have seen Bhashaindia and I used to refer it when it comes to Indian languages. Recently, I read Mr. Maniam’s (i-DNS.net International Inc) interview in Bhashaindia on 'internationalized domain names'. The effort of Bhashaindia is highly appreciable.

My suggestion is to make it a more attractive resource centre. Let common people come and fine out that computer is for them also. Please make your content in easy and common language. Make people aware of the unlimited potential of the Information Technology. Please tell them not to afraid of English as regional languages are also emerging.