Terminology Used in Internationalization in the IETF
RFC 3536
| Document | Type |
RFC - Informational
(May 2003; No errata)
Obsoleted by RFC 6365
|
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Last updated | 2015-10-14 | ||
| Stream | ISE | ||
| Formats | plain text pdf html bibtex | ||
| Stream | ISE state | (None) | |
| Consensus Boilerplate | Unknown | ||
| Document shepherd | No shepherd assigned | ||
| IESG | IESG state | RFC 3536 (Informational) | |
| Telechat date | |||
| Responsible AD | Patrik Fältström | ||
| IESG note | Published as RFC 3536 in May 2003 | ||
| Send notices to | (None) | ||
Network Working Group P. Hoffman
Request for Comments: 3536 IMC & VPNC
Category: Informational May 2003
Terminology Used in Internationalization in the IETF
Status of this Memo
This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does
not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this
memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2003). All Rights Reserved.
Abstract
This document provides a glossary of terms used in the IETF when
discussing internationalization. The purpose is to help frame
discussions of internationalization in the various areas of the IETF
and to help introduce the main concepts to IETF participants.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction................................................... 2
1.1 Purpose of this document.................................... 2
1.2 Format of the definitions in this document.................. 3
2. Fundamental Terms.............................................. 3
3. Standards Bodies and Standards................................. 8
3.1 Standards bodies............................................ 8
3.2 Encodings and transformation formats of ISO/IEC 10646....... 10
3.3 Native CCSs and charsets.................................... 11
4. Character Issues............................................... 12
4.1 Types of characters......................................... 15
5. User interface for text........................................ 17
6. Text in current IETF protocols................................. 19
7. Other Common Terms In Internationalization..................... 22
8. Security Considerations........................................ 25
9. References..................................................... 25
9.1 Normative References........................................ 25
9.2 Informative References...................................... 26
10. Additional Interesting Reading................................ 27
11. Index......................................................... 27
A. Acknowledgements............................................... 29
B. Author's Address............................................... 29
Full Copyright Statement.......................................... 30
Hoffman Informational [Page 1]
RFC 3536 Terminology Used in Internationalization in the IETF May 2003
1. Introduction
As [RFC2277] summarizes: "Internationalization is for humans. This
means that protocols are not subject to internationalization; text
strings are." Many protocols throughout the IETF use text strings
that are entered by, or are visible to, humans. It should be
possible for anyone to enter or read these text strings, which means
that Internet users must be able to be enter text in typical input
methods and displayed in any human language. Further, text
containing any character should be able to be passed between Internet
applications easily. This is the challenge of internationalization.
1.1 Purpose of this document
This document provides a glossary of terms used in the IETF when
discussing internationalization. The purpose is to help frame
discussions of internationalization in the various areas of the IETF
and to help introduce the main concepts to IETF participants.
Internationalization is discussed in many working groups of the IETF.
However, few working groups have internationalization experts. When
designing or updating protocols, the question often comes up "should
we internationalize this" (or, more likely, "do we have to
internationalize this").
This document gives an overview of internationalization as it applies
to IETF standards work by lightly covering the many aspects of
internationalization and the vocabulary associated with those topics.
It is not meant to be a complete description of internationalization.
The definitions in this document are not normative for IETF
standards; however, they are useful and standards may make
informative reference to this document after it becomes an RFC. Some
of the definitions in this document come from many earlier IETF
documents and books.
As in many fields, there is disagreement in the internationalization
community on definitions for many words. The topic of language
brings up particularly passionate opinions for experts and non-
experts alike. This document attempts to define terms in a way that
will be most useful to the IETF audience.
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