Re: draft-phillips-langtags-08, process, specifications, "stability", and
extensions
Date: 2005-01-01 19:56
From: "Doug Ewell" <dewell(_at_)adelphia(_dot_)net>
To: ietf-languages(_at_)alvestrand(_dot_)no
Bruce Lilly <blilly at erols dot com> wrote:
Domain names and
language tags are different types of names, used for
different purposes, and with different scope (largely
non-overlapping, though one might legitimately ask how
one is supposed to determine the language of an
"internationalized" domain name...)
One is not. Domain names are strings of characters; only incidentally
do they spell out one or more words in one or more languages. I doubt
whether the names "Google," "Yahoo," and "AltaVista" can be pinned down
as belonging to one specific language.
I was referring specifically to internationalized domain names
(IDN, RFCs 3490, 3491, 3492, 3743) where the on-the-wire
domain name continues to be of traditional form (ANSI X3.4
letters,digits, and hyphen (with restrictions on combinations
and placement)), but where a certain class of names (those
beginning with "xn--") are "internationalized" and might be
presented to users in a different form (which can include
non-ASCII characters). That came about because of the
tendency to associate a domain name (tag) with a natural
language "name" or legally-registered name (trademark, etc.).
Whether one considers such associations logical or
irrational, that is what has happened. So one could have
a domain name (beginning with xn--) that is presented by
an application as "Nestlé.com". Now certainly some names,
such as your examples, Kodak, Häagen-Dazs, etc. have no
language (because they are made-up strings of characters),
but others do have a specific language. In skimming through
the RFCs mentioned above, it appears that there is now some
provision for language tagging (which was not present in
earlier versions of IDN). However, I have not thoroughly
reviewed those recent additions; therefore it should be
clear that I have not reviewed the impact of the proposed
draft changes on IDN or vice versa. Such a review should
take place (ideally before the deadline for the New Last
Call on draft-phillips-langtags-08 (tomorrow!)), but I'm
not the person to do so as I have only slight interest in
IDN (I'm one of those who considers associating a tag
with natural language and/or legally registered names to
be irrational). One potential issue is that domain names
are case-insensitive, and whether lower-case accented
characters map to/compare with unaccented upper-case
letters may be a function of language (or culture, or
political fiat).
I would add that there is apparently some discussion of
wreaking similar havoc on local-parts, which appear in
message-identifiers and email mailbox identifiers (STD 11).
That too should be evaluated w.r.t. specification of
language and the proposed changes.
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