Seizing the occasion of International Mother Language Day, Microsoft announced Email Address Internationalization (EAI) for 15 Indian languages, including Hindi, Bodo, Dogri, Konkani, Maithili, Marathi, Nepali, Sindhi, Bengali, Gujarati, Manipuri, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu.
According to ICANN, the number of internet users worldwide will be over 5 billion by 2020. However, only English language has dominated the internet.
Across a population of around 130 crores in India, 447 languages are spoken, but none of them make it to the top 50 digital languages. Currently, 8% of the total internet users are Indians, and the number is rapidly increasing. “An English dominated web experience is less than ideal for these users.”
With this move, Microsoft aims to provide support for local language email addresses across a range of its services and contribute to ICANN’s efforts to make internet multilingual through Internationalized Domain Names (IDN) and Email Address Internationalization (EAI).
IDN and EAI are the efforts which allow conversion of domain names and email address to multiple languages, respectively. Microsoft’s EAI extension will enable Indian users to use IDNs across Office 365, Outlook 2016, Outlook.com, Outlook apps on Android and iOS, Exchange Online, as well as Exchange Online Protection (EOP).
Microsoft India has been working on Project Bhasha since 1998, to promote local language computing. The company is supporting Indian government’s initiatives like Digital India and BharatNet, and working closely with Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.
Microsoft has worked with ICANN towards development of IDN, EAI, generic top-level domains (gTLDs), and country-code TLDs specifications over the years. The tech giant integrated the specifications into Windows, .NET Framework, and several other server products across Microsoft platforms.
It also partnered with Universal Acceptance Steering Group (UASG) for universal acceptance of email addresses and domain names.
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IDNs in Indian languages will be given by National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI), allowing Indian users to register local language email address with third-party providers like XgenPlus (a Microsoft partner in India). An email address in Hindi will look like this- भाषा@माइक्रोसॉफ्ट.भारत (bhasha@microsoft.bharat), where Bharat is the Hindi name of India.
Thanks, it’s very informative