FW: [centr-tech] IDNA Redux]
John C Klensin
klensin at jck.com
Mon Nov 6 11:54:43 CET 2006
--On Monday, November 06, 2006 16:44 +1300 Sam Vilain
<sam.vilain at catalyst.net.nz> wrote:
> Dave wrote:
>> http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-faltstrom-idnabis-t
>> ables-00.txt
>>
>> | Exclude | U+02BB | U+02BB | Lm | MODIFIER LETTER
>> TURNED COMMA | | Exclude | U+02BC | U+02BC | Lm |
>> MODIFIER LETTER APOSTROPHE |
>
> As ASCII isn't directly encodable using Punycode, one of these
> is going to be needed to be allowed for Pacific languages,
> which use the apostrophe. eg, Hawaiʻi. It is often ignored,
> but in languages like Tongan it can make a difference.
Sam,
We are quite aware of this. The problem goes back to, and was
recognized in, the original work on IDNA and earlier -- the
character, in many typefaces, looks like the ASCII apostrophe /
single quote. That character is prohibited in DNS names for
several reasons, not least of which involves parsing problems in
many operating systems as well as the usual "confusable"
problem. Suggestions as to how to deal with it -- and avoid or
minimize those problems -- would be welcome, but this is one of
those cases in which "this is needed to write the language" is
unfortunately not sufficient. In practice, the principle needs
to be closer to "any character needed to write the language but
consistent with a stable and predictable DNS".
Just my opinion.
john
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