Yesterday's decision by the Internet regulators to allow domain names in characters other than Latin ones is a major shot in the arm for cultural equality. Most people in the world do not speak languages written in the Latin script. Of the 1.6 billion Internet users worldwide (a quarter of the world’s population), more than half use languages written in other scripts. There are billions more as yet without access to a computer and the Internet, who largely live in Africa and Asia who likewise do not speak a language which uses Latin characters. They are potential users. The Internet, as the prime means of communication and information exchange alongside television and telephone, must be fully accessible to them. Enabling users to key in Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Cyrillic or whatever scripts they use to access their chosen websites will show that all languages and cultures are regarded as equal in the Internet age. The Internet becomes truly global.

Whether increasing domain name characters from 30 to over 100,000 makes a great deal of practical difference is another matter. Small local businesses such as restaurants or shops will probably avail themselves of the facility, but most businesses and most websites will probably stick to the present system. They have got used to it — and so much information these days is a global affair. People are telling the world about their products, their interests or their views, not the people next door. In any event, Latin script will continue to dominate the Net — if only because there are more people in the world whose native languages use Latin characters than those using any other single script. Moreover, there seems little chance that English is going to be displaced as the most used language on the Net — despite what the Chinese, who pushed for the domain name script change, may think. The advance of English worldwide is relentless. A decade ago, it was estimated that 750 million people spoke English — native speakers and those who had it as a second language combined. The most recent reliable figure, based largely on censuses carried out across the world, puts the number at 1.2 billion. But most of the censuses were carried out between 2000 and 2002. Estimates today are over 1.6 billion. That means English is now the most widely spoken language in the world — not Mandarin Chinese. Indeed, China now has more people able to carry out a conversation in English (and read English-language Web pages) than the US; India more than the US and UK combined. The rate of spread shows no sign of abating. With an estimated two billion people learning English worldwide, in 10 years’ time, over half the world’s population may well be able to speak English.

This is not just a spread of English as a second language. It is displacing others as the first tongue, notably in India and Malaysia and in African countries such as Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa. These shifts, with the growth of English-medium schools, are happening very fast. How long before the majority of Indians are like the Welsh and the Irish who have their own distinctive languages but use English every day, or the Bretons and Corsicans who use French? A couple of decades is all it takes for a generation to move from infancy, through the education system and into jobs and parenthood themselves.