It is very inconsiderate of five-sixths of the world to fail to speak English, but then we are reliably informed that they feel pretty much the same way.

And so while the Internet has done an extraordinary job of transcending physical borders, language remains a pretty significant issue if you want to actually communicate with your new online neighbour.

When it comes to ICANN’s work, this comes with an extra layer of complexity thanks to the fact that the vast majority of English speakers wouldn’t know what an English speaker was talking about when discussing many of the topics that concern ICANN on a day-to-day basis.

But we can take it one step higher when it comes to the issue of Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) where the lingo and terminology itself recognizes different languages and the way they function technically and linguistically with one another on the Internet.

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