4 ms·

A lot of country top levels aren't based on the local language's name, but the English one. For example, Zhongguo, the country sometimes known as China, uses .

by fiblye 7y ago

A lot of country top levels aren't based on the local language's name, but the English one. For example, Zhongguo, the country sometimes known as China, uses .cn instead of .zg. And yeah, regarding tourism, most people traveling there from outside of Brazil will probably be searching for the English name. I can see why they'd prefer .amazon for that purpose, even if the uses are limited. But then again, how many domains does Amazon (the company) really need?

kijeda 7y ago
Zhongguo also has .中国 and .中國 as top-level domains which would presumably be more intelligible to Chinese speakers.
- fiblye 7y ago
  That is true, but non-ascii TLDs are also relatively recent.
  - eridius 7y ago
    I didn't realize there even were non-ascii TLDs. I thought non-ascii domain name components were restricted to everything but the TLD.
    - dehrmann 7y ago
      Domain names are ascii; there's just an encoding for unicode: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punycode https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punycode
      - eridius 7y ago
        Right, but those weren't originally allowed for TLDs. It looks like internationalized ccTLDs were finally approved in 2009.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
r3bl 7y ago
Doing the opposite is quite inconvenient indeed. When you see .hr, Croatia is probably the last thing you would think of. It's the first two letters of Croatia spelled in Croatian ("Hrvatska"). There are only so many ways to shorten a word to two characters, and .ca, .cr, and .co were all taken. I guess they could have went with .ct, but they've decided on .hr instead. Similarly, .flights is always gonna be more useful to have control over compared to .vuelos (same, but in Spanish).
- chillacy 7y ago
  Inconvenient... for English speakers. But more convenient for locals. Seriously l9n is still an important aspect of software.
  - wutbrodo 7y ago
    > l9n is still an important aspect of software. Is this different from l10n?
    - kgwgk 7y ago
      Apparently using l9n instead of l10n is common enough to deserve a footnote in https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/java-cookbook/0596001703/ch14.html https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/java-cookbook/059600170... Sometimes written L9N by those who can’t count, or who think that L10N that looks too much like “lion.”
      - wutbrodo 7y ago
        Ha, interesting thanks. I was wondering how someone could've independently come across the concept of counting it out without coming across the correct term itself, but I guess if it's a commonly-made mistake, that explains it.
sirn 7y ago
ccTLDs are based on ISO 3166-1 Alpha-2 codes, except some older ccTLDs before this was standardized (e.g. .uk instead of .gb) and a special case (.eu). It is also governed by a different entity/policies than gTLD (ccNSO instead of GNSO) There was also a case where a country was removed from ISO 3166-1, resulting in ccTLD being removed (transitioned to other TLD). See .yu[1] which has been split into .rs and .me because of Yugoslavia breakup into Serbia and Montenegro. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.yu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.yu
- walshemj 7y ago
  I remember seeing the split in Yugoslavia mail come though when I worked for BT on the international side on interconnects - a rather sobering email to read.
adolph 7y ago
The People's Republic of China (Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó) and Republic of China (Zhōnghuá Mínguó) are the official names for the two contemporary sovereign states currently claiming sovereignty over the traditional area of China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_China
morpheuskafka 7y ago
That's because that's their ISO country code, they didn't specifically pick it for the domain.
Grue3 7y ago
The top level domains were chosen based on the wishes of the countries' governments, at the time the system was created. For example South African .za is based on Afrikaans which isn't even the most common language spoken there. The reason is because the SA government still practiced apartheid back then.

by fiblye 7y ago

kijeda 7y ago

Zhongguo also has .中国 and .中國 as top-level domains which would presumably be more intelligible to Chinese speakers.

fiblye 7y ago
That is true, but non-ascii TLDs are also relatively recent.
- eridius 7y ago
  I didn't realize there even were non-ascii TLDs. I thought non-ascii domain name components were restricted to everything but the TLD.
  - dehrmann 7y ago
    Domain names are ascii; there's just an encoding for unicode: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punycode https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punycode
    - eridius 7y ago
      Right, but those weren't originally allowed for TLDs. It looks like internationalized ccTLDs were finally approved in 2009.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

r3bl 7y ago

Doing the opposite is quite inconvenient indeed. When you see .hr, Croatia is probably the last thing you would think of. It's the first two letters of Croatia spelled in Croatian ("Hrvatska"). There are only so many ways to shorten a word to two characters, and .ca, .cr, and .co were all taken. I guess they could have went with .ct, but they've decided on .hr instead. Similarly, .flights is always gonna be more useful to have control over compared to .vuelos (same, but in Spanish).

chillacy 7y ago
Inconvenient... for English speakers. But more convenient for locals. Seriously l9n is still an important aspect of software.
- wutbrodo 7y ago
  > l9n is still an important aspect of software. Is this different from l10n?
  - kgwgk 7y ago
    Apparently using l9n instead of l10n is common enough to deserve a footnote in https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/java-cookbook/0596001703/ch14.html https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/java-cookbook/059600170... Sometimes written L9N by those who can’t count, or who think that L10N that looks too much like “lion.”
    - wutbrodo 7y ago
      Ha, interesting thanks. I was wondering how someone could've independently come across the concept of counting it out without coming across the correct term itself, but I guess if it's a commonly-made mistake, that explains it.

sirn 7y ago

ccTLDs are based on ISO 3166-1 Alpha-2 codes, except some older ccTLDs before this was standardized (e.g. .uk instead of .gb) and a special case (.eu). It is also governed by a different entity/policies than gTLD (ccNSO instead of GNSO) There was also a case where a country was removed from ISO 3166-1, resulting in ccTLD being removed (transitioned to other TLD). See .yu[1] which has been split into .rs and .me because of Yugoslavia breakup into Serbia and Montenegro. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.yu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.yu

walshemj 7y ago
I remember seeing the split in Yugoslavia mail come though when I worked for BT on the international side on interconnects - a rather sobering email to read.

adolph 7y ago

The People's Republic of China (Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó) and Republic of China (Zhōnghuá Mínguó) are the official names for the two contemporary sovereign states currently claiming sovereignty over the traditional area of China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_China

morpheuskafka 7y ago

That's because that's their ISO country code, they didn't specifically pick it for the domain.

Grue3 7y ago

The top level domains were chosen based on the wishes of the countries' governments, at the time the system was created. For example South African .za is based on Afrikaans which isn't even the most common language spoken there. The reason is because the SA government still practiced apartheid back then.