IDN Registration

What are Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs)?

Internationalized Domain Names are domain names represented by native language characters. The native language domain name will be followed by .com or .net for example: .com). 

How do I use an IDN?

To use an IDN to navigate to a Web site, the user types the Internationalized Domain Name in an IDN enabled browser's address bar or clicks an active link. If the user does not have an IDNA enabled browser, he can still access the domain's site using ASCII (Punycode) version of the IDN. 

What languages are supported?

Since availability of languages is dependent upon Unicode, it would be best to answer this question in Unicode terms from the Unicode site. Many scripts (especially Latin) are used for a very large number of languages. The easiest answer is that Unicode covers all the languages that can be written in the following scripts: Latin; Greek; Cyrillic; Armenian; Hebrew; Arabic; Syriac; Thaana; Devanagari; Bengali; Gurmukhi; Oriya; Tamil; Telegu; Kannada; Malayalam; Sinhala; Thai; Lao; Tibetan; Myanmar; Georgian; Hangul; Ethiopic; Cherokee; Canadian-Aboriginal Syllabics; Ogham; Runic; Khmer; Mongolian; Han (Japanese, Chinese, Korean ideographs); Hiragana; Katakana; Bopomofo and Yi. 

Where can I find more information about IDNs?

For additional information please visit:. 

   - ICANN Guidelines for the Implementation of Internationalized Domain Names
   - Wikipedia.org IDN Article
   - Verisign IDN FAQ

IDN Conversion Tool

This conversion tool will convert an International Domain Name (IDN) or nameserver from any one of the following formats to the others:

Native Characters
This is a string of native characters that have been registered with the VeriSign GRS IDN Testbed.

RACE
Row-Based ASCII Compatible Encoding (ACE)- This is a string of ASCII characters that have been registered in the VeriSign GRS IDN Testbed.

PUNYCODE:
PUNYCODE is a simple and efficient ASCII-Compatible Encoding (ACE) designed for use with Internationalized Domain Names. It transforms a Unicode string into a string of characters allowed in hostname labels (ASCII letters, digits, and hyphens) and back again.

To convert an IDN or nameserver from native characters to the Punycode version that is stored in the VeriSign Whois database:

1. Type the domain name or nameserver name that you would like to check in the input field.
2. Click on "convert" and the results page will show the RACE and Punycode encoding for that domain.
3. On the results page, select domain or nameserver and click on "Query" to search the VeriSign Whois.