• BBC coverage
• Icann
• Egyptian Ministry of Technology (Arabic script)

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MARCO WERMAN:  A quick note now on a big change today for internet users, at least for those who use languages that are not written with Latin script characters.  Until today, web addresses could only be spelled out in Latin script.  The letters used in say English or Spanish.  Now the body that regulates the internet, ICANN, has switched on a system that allows for web addresses written in other scripts, including Chinese and Arabic.  Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates became the first to have country codes in Arabic script.  ICANN says the move is intended to make the web more global and accessible for everyone.

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If you’ve followed this podcast for any length of time, you’ll know I have a soft spot for the late Douglas Adams’ monumentally satisfying Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I love it in pretty much all of its forms (OK, I’m partial to the radio version…for slightly obvious reasons), and I love all of the characters (OK…I’m partial to Marvin the Paranoid Android, again for slightly obvious reasons). Like many fans, I have been waiting anxiously to see if another author would be given the chance to write Book Six of the Now Completely Unaptly Named Trilogy. Well, folks, it has been done. Irish author Eoin Colfer (who you might know from the Artemis Fowl series) got the nod a while back, and the new book is out. It’s called And Another Thing…, and on this week’s podcast Colfer talks about Adams, technology, and the popular cult that is H2G2.

We’ve also got the amazing tale of William Kamkwamba, who at the age of 14 built a windmill…by himself…from scratch. WTP first heard of Kamkwamba three years ago via Afrigadget. Now, he’s the co-author of a new book called The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind. He’s a great interview, as you can tell from this video of his appearance on The Daily Show.

Rounding out WTP this week, we have an interview with Rod Beckstrom, President and CEO of ICANN, the California non-profit that ensures that when you type our web address into your browser, you end up here, and not at some Russian porn site. Beckstrom was in Egypt to represent ICANN at the Internet Governance Forum, a UN-sponsored annual shindig designed to provide a space for “multi-stakeholder discussion” about various aspects of global online life.

Last, but certainly not least, is a report from the Czech Republic on the company that makes plastic explosive Semtex. The company’s name is…and we’re not making this up…Explosia.

Remember, we’re on Twitter, Facebook and FriendFeed.

You can donate to WTP here.

For the latest newsy pod, Carol Hills and Clark Boyd from the Big Show help me pick our top five language-related stories from the past month:

5. Some birds develop distinct dialects based on the decibel levels of their habitats. Dialect here is a term of art. It does not mean that birds living in say, North Carolina chirp the avian version of “y’all.” No, it means that over time, some bird species can change the frequency, pitch and volume of their song according to their sonic environment. The latest study, of the white-crowned sparrow (pictured) shows that urban noise appears to have a profound impact on birdsong.

There is a BBC story from a few years ago suggesting that cows pick up on regional human accents. But, alas, the story may have been largely bogus.

4. A British translation firm is offering to provide local interpreters to companies doing business in Glasgow. Proof that there are many, many variations of English, even on one medium-sized island. This service may be more useful at football match or a betting shop than in a boardroom: I can’t imagine that white-collar Glaswegians use terms like moroculous, laldy and maw during working hours. But it is true that Glasgow English is a massive challenge, especially for non-native English speakers. As is Newcastle, Liverpool and Swansea English.

3.The French President Nicolas Sarkozy is calling for reforms in how foreign languages are taught in schools. Surpringly, France lags behind many other developed countries when it comes to bilingualism and foreign language learning, as discussed in a couple of earlier posts and podcasts. Now, doubtless spurred by The World in Words’ efforts to give this matter an airing, the French government is vowing to act. The proposed reforms haven’t been decided upon yet, but they seem likely to favor oral skills over grammar. Some European language-learning groups however, are skeptical that the reforms will help much.

2. Chinese expats are doing battle over which script U.S. schools should use to teach Chinese. Schools have two options — traditional characters, favored in Taiwan and Hong Kong, or simplified characters, used in mainland China. Where there is a large expat Taiwanese community, as there is in certain parts of Los Angeles, schools are more likely to use traditional characters. But that’s changing, as more Chinese communites outside of China (eg in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia) switch to simplified characters. And all that trade that the U.S. does with mainland China means that it makes a lot of sense to learn the script in use there. However, proponents of traditional characters aren’t giving up without a fight, sometimes perhaps to the detriment of the kids trying to learn the language.

1. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is going linguistically global. This is the organization that oversees and sets certain rules for domain names. ICANN is now allowing non Latin script urls. It’s something Latin script-writers think of as a mere technicality. But if you’re not used to writing Latin script, it’s a major pain to have to. So this should make the internet accessible to even more people around the world. And who knows, the Georgian script on the banner of this blog may one day end up as part of a domain name. (I took the photo. It’s of a billboard above a highway in central Georgia. The messages, courtesy of the government, are patriotic slogans. Someone told me exactly what the words mean, but…sorry, I’ve forgotten.)

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Wow. It’s not often the Technology Podcast gets to celebrate the very reason, figuratively and literally, for its existence. But this week, the Internet celebrated its 40th anniversary/birthday/whatever you want to call it. That’s UCLA’s Leonard Kleinrock, with the Interface Message Processor. Forty years ago this week, Kleinrock and his team sent the first message between two computers. One of the computers was at UCLA, and the other was up at Stanford Research Institute (SRI). That message was supposed to be “L-O-G-I-N.” Prophetically, maybe poetically, only the “L” and “O” got through before the Net experienced its first system crash. Anyone know how to say “Fail Whale” in 1969-speak? Anyway — to celebrate, UCLA threw a symposium-ish bash. You can read more about that here. Our intrepid left coast correspondent, Cyrus Farivar, happened to be down in Los Angeles for the festivities. He sent us interviews with Kleinrock and Charles Kline (who typed that fateful “L-O” message). He also sent along an extended interview with Chinese blogger and Internet activist Isaac Mao. All in all, the three interviews provide a fascinating glimpse into what the Net was, what it is, and what it could be someday. And speaking of where the Net is headed. Word came today from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is to allow scripts besides the Latin script in domain names. These so-called Internationalized Domain Names will now be allowed to include Arabic, Chinese, Russian and many other scripts. As always, explaining the domain name set-up is a bit tricky, so here’s a video to help you:

I know many of you will be asking for some of the source material for the opening audio montage. So, below, please find two incredibly enlightening videos. This stuff is gold, people, pure gold. We’re on Twitter, Facebook, and FriendFeed.

“.yu” is the Internet country code assigned to Yugoslavia. The country no longer exists. The name hasn’t even been used officially since 2003.

That’s when Yugoslavia became “Serbia and Montenegro.” Now those two are independent — and each has its OWN country code. But the Internet can take a while to catch up to all the name changes.

An estimated 4,000 websites still use the “.yu” code. So ICANN — the agency in charge of Internet addresses — is taking its time to phase it out.

OK here’s today’s quiz:

Can you name another country that broke up into smaller states in the 1990′s and whose internet code is still being phased out?

That code is “.su”. Have you used that lately?

We’ll use it to reveal the answer here…

We asked you to name a country that’s disappeared — but whose Internet country code…hasn’t.

Not yet, anyway.

The code is “.su”. And it stands for the Soviet Union.

Believe it or not, more than 80,000 websites still use a “.su” address — even though there’s no going back… to the USSR.