How important is language diversity on the Internet to closing the digital divide?
Currently native speakers of Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Tamil, Thai and other languages have restricted means of addressing the web in their own language. The opening up of the web to a more diverse range of scripts will allow these communities to develop their own content and browse in their own language. This is especially critical as some estimates suggest that by 2003, two-thirds of all Internet users will be non-English speakers. Here too ITU is providing practical help to address the need for linguistic diversity to ensure wider access to the Internet. It was for this reason a joint symposium was held by ITU and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in association with the Multilingual Internet Names Consortium (MINC). The aim of the Symposium on Multilingual Domain Names was to reflect the lack of linguistic diversity on the Internet by suggesting ways in which scripts other than the Latin based ASCII means of accessing websites currently used can be built
