Tamil Numerals in IDNA - Re: WG Last Call for Four Primary IDNABIS I-Ds

[Vint Cerf]

gihan,

thank you for this important input.

Is there disagreement in the WG with this proposed exception?

vint


On Aug 20, 2009, at 9:22 PM, Gihan Dias wrote:

> 2009-08-10 ප.ව. 4:52 දින, Vint Cerf ලිව්වා:
>>
>> Folks,
>>
>> the following documents are now officially on last call ending  
>> August 24, 2009. Editorial comments and new issues (only) will be  
>> considered:
> ...
>> The Unicode code points and IDNA: draft-ietf-idnabis-tables-06.txt
>>
> The Sri Lanka IDN Task Force considered the document draft-ietf- 
> idnabis-tables-06.txt and has an issue with the inclusion on the  
> Tamil Digits as valid IDNA characters.
>  0BE6..0BEF  ; PVALID      # TAMIL DIGIT ZERO..TAMIL DIGIT NINE
> These characters are not in general use, and several of them are  
> identical or similar to other Tamil characters (see attached image).
>
> SL-IDN-TF member G. Balachandan said:
>> Tamil has a distinct set of digits. These digit representations  
>> were commonly used in the early twentieth century but these are not  
>> used now (or very less usage). Presently the European digits have  
>> replaced the Tamil numerals in usage. Most of the Tamil numerals  
>> cannot be distinguished from some of the Tamil vowels, consonants,  
>> syllables and other symbols.
>> (Please see the attached image)
>> Tamil numerals should not be allowed in IDNA2008
>> Thanks
>> Bala
> Note that the usage of Tamil digits is quite different to, for  
> example, Devanagari or Bengali digits, which *are* in current use.  
> Most Tamil speakers today are not even aware of the Tamil digits,  
> and would not know how to input them on a keyboard. [I believe that  
> a similar situation exists for other South Indian scripts, as well  
> as Thai, etc. but will confine this request to Tamil].
>
> I am aware that Tamil digits have the Unicode property "Nd", in  
> common with other digits, and it will be difficult to segregate them  
> on the basis of Unicode properties.
>
> Leaving it up to registries to not register names with these digits  
> is unlikely to work, as registries would normally use the RFC as  
> their reference.
>
> However, we consider that the potential for confusion is sufficient  
> that they be disallowed in the protocol, and request that they be  
> excluded.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Gihan Dias
> Chairman, Sri Lanka IDN Task Force
> <Tamil Numerals.jpg>