Terminology Used in Internationalization in the IETF
RFC 3536
Document | Type |
RFC - Informational
(May 2003; No errata)
Obsoleted by RFC 6365
Was draft-hoffman-i18n-terms (app)
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Author | Paul Hoffman | ||
Last updated | 2015-10-14 | ||
Stream | Independent Submission | ||
Formats | plain text html pdf htmlized (tools) htmlized bibtex | ||
Stream | ISE state | (None) | |
Consensus Boilerplate | Unknown | ||
Document shepherd | No shepherd assigned | ||
IESG | IESG state | RFC 3536 (Informational) | |
Action Holders |
(None)
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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. This document uses definitions from many documents that have been developed outside the IETF. The primary documents used are: - ISO/IEC 10646 [ISOIEC10646] - The Unicode Standard [UNICODE] Hoffman Informational [Page 2]Show full document text