Re: Regional iTLD Question

[Michael Dillon <michael@memra.com>]

On Thu, 28 Nov 1996, Administracio del Sistema wrote:

> Most of the web sites here are in Catalan. Our addresses,
> have the .es suffix. Lots of people of overseas enter
> these webs and they say 'Ough ! this is not spanish !!'.

But some of us manage to read the language quite well anyway. I can even
read Portuguese, Occitan, and Gallego even though I don't speak those
languages and have never studied them.

> 1) Ask for ISO-3166 update to include .ct as a TLD
> for catalonia. (We have a website with more than
> one thousand supporters --> http://www.domini-ct.org )
> Our local government has approved a resolution to ask
> spanish government to act in consequence.

I think this is another item that new iTLD's can solve and it may be
important enought to merit some special consideration from the IAHC.
I believe there are 5 languages spoken in Spain, Catalan, Spanish
(Castilian), Gallego, Occitan and Basque. In France, French is used in the
North, Occitan in the south and Basque in the southwest. Italy has its
albanesi, its greeks, etc. I think most people in North America are just
not aware of the great diversity of languages and cultures in Europe and
even other parts of the world.

However I'm not sure that this should be done in the .iTLD's. Could we
set aside yet another iTLD like .POP (from Latin populus - people) in
which second level domains would be established for linguistic and
cultural populations to register 3rd level domains. For instance in my
area of Canada, the Okanagan people speak their own language and might
have domains in .OKANAGAN.POP. In the parts of Canada and the USA are a 
disinct group of people who speak a German dialect .AMISH.POP. To the
southeast of me in Canada are the Russian-speaking Doukho-Borsti
.DOUKHOBOR.POP and so on.

Michael Dillon                   -               ISP & Internet Consulting
Memra Software Inc.              -                  Fax: +1-604-546-3049
http://www.memra.com             -               E-mail: michael@memra.com