Gmail Now Recognises Email Addresses With Non-Latin Characters

Google has taken what it is calling the 'first step toward more global email'. The company is trying to make the adoption of email addresses containing accented or non-Latin characters widespread by providing partialsupport in its very popular Gmail service.

The need for the widespread adoption of these types of email addresses was clearly expressed by the search giant on its Official Gmail Blog post on Tuesday, saying less than 50 percent of the world's population has a mother tongue based on the Latin alphabet, and that even fewer people use solely non-accented letters.

The company pointed to an email standard supporting accented or non-Latin characters created by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) in 2012, which since has seen insufficient adoption. Google said that in order for it to become acceptable, "every email provider and every website that asks you for your email address must adopt it."

Admitting to the difficulty of that goal, Google said, "The technology is there, but someone has to take the first step. Today we're ready to be that someone." The first step as per Google was allowing Gmail to recognise addresses that contain accented or non-Latin characters, and thus giving Gmail users the ability to send emails to, and receive emails from such email addresses.

Google added that it would soon bring Calendar support for email addresses with accented or non-Latin characters, and also make it possible in the future to create Gmail addresses of the same type.

The Mountain View-based search giant emphasised its efforts towards making email more global, by reiterating its recent addition of support for 13 new languages in Gmail, and said "Language should never be a barrier when it comes to connecting with others and with this step forward, truly global email is now even closer to becoming a reality."