blackletter fraktur

Deutsche Presse Agentur announced that the German ligature Esszet, ß, will be deigned allowable in internet domain names beginning soon by the shadowy registrars that determine such protocols. For those unused to such foreign characters, there is always a bit of reluctance and apprehension of unleashing a letter transcribed as an "ss," "sz," "B," Greek beta or ampersand or could insert some wild and rogue, non-displayable carriage-return.  Some degree of oversight is needed to maintain functionality across the world-wide web: just think of relative uselessness of the @-sign not so very long ago.  Until just last year, all the world was at the hegemony of the standard Roman alphabet, and while it could present particular challenges to those not immediately able to input an umlaut or other diacritic or fancy ligature, websites with native characters would be more targeted to local use and still not relegated to internet obscurity, like the nonsensical strasse.de instead of straße.de. Aside from potential loss of foreign traffic and idle looky-loos, I suppose internet watchdogs want to be able to keep easy access to their wards. They would not have their clerks undone for want of an extended alphabet. In addition to Chinese and other Asian syllabics, now it is even possible to navigate in Arabic with traditionally right-to-left order. This is a pretty significant and positive development--and I probably betray my own cultural hegemony when I admit I marvel at a Cyrillic or Japanese typewriter--and I think it is an appropriate celebration of one's language, expressed properly, and ensures that no flavor is lost conforming to arbitrary standards.