Internet regulators today heralded a new era of international web use that will no longer be dominated by the Latin alphabet.

The board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) voted unanimously to allow Hebrew, Hindi and scores of other scripts to be allowed as domain names.

Until now Chinese, Russian and Arabic computer users have been among the billions who are forced to contend with letters and characters not used in their own languages in order to navigate the internet.

The decision by the Icann board’s 15 voting members came after a summit in Seoul, South Korea. The proposal was passed unopposed and welcomed with a standing ovation from delegates.

Rod Beckstrom, the organisation’s CEO, said that the move would revolutionise access to the internet. He said: “This represents one small step for Icann but one big step for half of mankind who use non-Latin scripts, such as those in Korea, China and the Arabic-speaking world as well as across Asia, Africa, and the rest of the world.”

Today’s decision comes after years of debate and testing on the future of domain names, the addresses that define websites often ending “.com” or “.co.uk”.

The result clears the way for governments to submit requests for specific addresses that would suit their own citizens. It is expected that the Chinese Government will be at the head of the queue when the application process formally opens on November 16.

Icann officials said that the new addresses could be in use early next year.

Since their creation in the 1980s, domain names have been limited to the 26 characters in the Latin alphabet used in English, as well as ten numerals and the hyphen.

Portions of internet addresses have been allowed to use non-Latin scripts in the past but, until now, the final suffixes had to use those 37 characters.

That limit meant users with little or no knowledge of English had to struggle with Latin characters even to access web pages that were written entirely in other scripts such as Chinese or Arabic.

Although search engines can sometimes help users reach those sites, companies still need to include Latin characters on posters and other advertisements.

Edward Yu, CEO of Analysys International, an internet consulting firm in Beijing, said: “This is absolutely delightful news.” He said that the internet would become more accessible to users with lower incomes and education.

Under the new rules, countries can only request one suffix for each of their official languages, and the suffix must somehow reflect the name of the country or its abbreviation.

Non-Latin versions of the dominant “.com” and “.org”, however, will not be permitted for at least a few more years while Icann considers broader implications such as whether the incumbent operator of a “.com” domain should automatically get a Chinese version. Beijing is lobbying for a system that does not have any automatic crossover rights.

Most Chinese and Japanese computer users currently write characters in their native scripts by typing phonetic versions on a standard English keyboard.

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