Linguistic Guidelines for the Use of the Arabic Language in Internet Domains
RFC 5564

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Independent Submission                                    A. El-Sherbiny
Request for Comments: 5564                                      M. Farah
Category: Informational                                         UN-ESCWA
ISSN: 2070-1721                                              I. Oueichek
                                            Syrian Telecom Establishment
                                                             A. Al-Zoman
                                                          SaudiNIC, CITC
                                                           February 2010

                  Linguistic Guidelines for the Use of
                the Arabic Language in Internet Domains

Abstract

   This document constitutes technical specifications for the use of
   Arabic in Internet domain names and provides linguistic guidelines
   for Arabic domain names.  It addresses Arabic-specific linguistic
   issues pertaining to the use of Arabic language in domain names.

Status of This Memo

   This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
   published for informational purposes.

   This is a contribution to the RFC Series, independently of any other
   RFC stream.  The RFC Editor has chosen to publish this document at
   its discretion and makes no statement about its value for
   implementation or deployment.  Documents approved for publication by
   the RFC Editor are not a candidate for any level of Internet
   Standard; see Section 2 of RFC 5741.

   Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
   and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
   http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5564.

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RFC 5564               Arabic Character Guidelines         February 2010

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2010 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
   publication of this document.  Please review these documents
   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
   to this document.

   This document may not be modified, and derivative works of it may not
   be created, except to format it for publication as an RFC or to
   translate it into languages other than English.

Table of Contents

   1. Introduction ....................................................2
   2. Arabic Language-Specific Issues .................................3
      2.1. Linguistic Issues ..........................................4
           2.1.1. Diacritics (Tashkeel) and Shadda ....................4
           2.1.2. Kasheeda or Tatweel (Horizontal Character
                  Size Extension) .....................................5
           2.1.3. Character Folding ...................................5
      2.2. Supported Character Set ....................................6
      2.3. Arabic Linguistic Issues Affected by Technical
           Constraints ................................................8
           2.3.1. Numerals ............................................8
           2.3.2. The Space Character .................................8
   3. Summary and Conclusion ..........................................8
   4. Security Considerations .........................................9
   5. Acknowledgments .................................................9
   6. References ......................................................9
      6.1. Normative References .......................................9
      6.2. Informative References .....................................9

1.  Introduction

   The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) issued in March 2003 a set
   of RFCs for Internationalized Domain Names (IDN) ([1], [2], and [3]),
   which were planned to become the de facto standard for all languages.
   In 2007 and 2008, the following working drafts were released that
   propose revisions to the IDNA protocol:

   o  Internationalized Domain Names for Applications (IDNA):
      Background, Explanation, and Rationale [5]

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RFC 5564               Arabic Character Guidelines         February 2010

   o  Internationalized Domain Names in Applications (IDNA): Protocol
      [6]

   o  An updated IDNA criterion for right-to-left scripts [7]

   o  The Unicode code points and IDNA [8]

   These documents are known collectively as "IDNA2008".

   This document constitutes a technical specification for the
   implementation of the IDN standards in the case of the Arabic
   language.  It will allow the use of standard language tables to write
   domain names in Arabic characters.  Therefore, it should be
   considered as a logical extension to the IDN standards.  It thus
   presents guidelines for the proper use of Arabic characters with the