Serbian domains in translation
In 2007, a new not-for-profit organisation was formed to manage Serbia’s country-code top-level Internet domain (ccTLD for short), which at the time was still .yu, the domain inherited of course from the former Yugoslavia. In March 2008, a new top-level domain was introduced for the Republic of Serbia – .rs, and the old .yu ccTLD finally laid to rest in March 2010.
In August 2011, RNIDS approached Odista regarding an English translation of the Serbian site, having had our services recommended to them by another customer. As we continually emphasise at Odista, our (and the client’s) top priority was the quality of translation – far too many English-language websites in Serbia have substandard or even “Google Translate-d” content which reflects incredibly badly on the organisations and companies in question. This simply is not an option for a serious organisation such as RNIDS.
Around 3 weeks later, Odista delivered some 23,000 translated words of source material, which is to go live on the site in the very near future. The materials include not just extensive information on domain registrations for potential customers, but also explanations of the organisation, the way it works, its procedures, its history and – comprising the single largest texts – official documents such as the organisation’s Statute.
It was very important, as always, to provide an idiomatic English translation from the Serbian that could in no way be distinguished from original material written in English. We also took great care in translating certain recurring terminology such as concepts relating to the Internet and domain registrations, which were carefully researched, as well as terms concerning RNIDS itself – the names of its internal documents, rules and regulations and departments. The key terms will be published on the website in the form of a glossary that we compiled.
We also came out of the project with considerably more knowledge about this area. For example, you may not be aware that in the last year or two, the central Internet domain authority ICANN has begun making it possible to register domains using non-Latin scripts such as Cyrillic. These are being introduced on a country-by-country basis, and Serbia is one of the early adopters, with RNIDS receiving approval for a new Serbian Cyrillic ccTLD – .срб. The only site that you can view on this ccTLD at time of writing is RNIDS own site, at рнидс.срб. If you go to this link (copy-paste it into your browser), and your browser supports these new types of domain, you will see a very odd set of letters and numbers appear in your browser address bar. This is normal – it is a form of encoding that makes sure the Cyrillic characters are correctly interpreted. Odista’s Serbian site is currently available by visiting odista.rs and of course одиста.срб will be ours as soon as public registration is opened.
Odista is pleased to be able to add another prestigious organisation to its list of references and to have helped ensure that the Serbian national domain name registrar is represented in a fitting manner to the international Internet community.
