RE: Urdu IDNs: Characters in domain names

Richard wrote:

I think that, if we are to use non-latin
> characters for script-based TLDs, they must only be
> characters that are readily accessible from keyboards of
> people writing any language that uses that script.

I agree - insofar as is possible.

Best regards

Debbie Garside



> -----Original Message-----
> From: www-international-request@w3.org
> [mailto:www-international-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Richard Ishida
> Sent: 23 August 2007 19:19
> To: 'Martin Duerst'; 'Sarmad Hussain'
> Cc: 'Jonathan Rosenne'; www-international@w3.org;
> public-iri@w3.org; psayo@idrc.org.in; 'Maria Ng Lee Hoon';
> 'nayyara.karamat -'; cc@panl10n.net
> Subject: RE: Urdu IDNs: Characters in domain names
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Martin Duerst [mailto:duerst@it.aoyama.ac.jp]
> > Sent: 20 August 2007 07:37
>
> > As an example, consider the TLD for Switzerland, "ch".
> > Switzerland is a multilingual country with four official languages
> > (see top left of http://www.admin.ch/).
> > It would only be confusing both inside Switzerland as well
> as outside
> > if different languages used differnt TLDs for Switzerland. For many
> > people, the "ch" is just conventional, best known because
> it appears
> > on the back of many cars.
> > The "ch" is actually taken from the Latin (language, not
> > script) name of the country, "Confoederatio Helvetica", but many
> > people don't realize that, and for TLDs, it doesn't really matter.
> > What matters is that people who want to know the TLD of Switzerland
> > can look it up, can remember it, can type it, and so on. It's a
> > benefit if a TLD is easily derivable from the country name
> (e.g. "fr"
> > for France), but it's not always so, because otherwise,
> there would be
> > clashes. It would be very confusing if a TLD changed depending on
> > language (e.g. "ge" for Germany in English rather than the current
> > "de" (Deutschland, Germany in German), or "al" for
> Allemagne (Germany
> > in French), or the many other names that Germany has in various
> > languages. It might help some people a tiny bit, but it
> would make it
> > impossible to send URIs using these TLDs across language
> boundaries,
> > and would lead to conflicts because there are only so many
> two-letter
> > combinations.
>
> I think it's important to note that this only works well
> because people writing any of the Swiss languages or English
> can easily type the letters 'ch' from their keyboard.  If the
> TLD had been ch I think there would have been a lot of
> problems.  I think that, if we are to use non-latin
> characters for script-based TLDs, they must only be
> characters that are readily accessible from keyboards of
> people writing any language that uses that script.
>
>
> RI
>
>
>
>
>

Received on Thursday, 23 August 2007 21:08:46 UTC