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

[James Mitchell]

I disagree.

This is a result of case-by-case analysis of individual characters.  If one
does not want the characters in a label then do not allow them during
registration.

James

> -----Original Message-----
> From: idna-update-bounces at alvestrand.no [mailto:idna-update-
> bounces at alvestrand.no] On Behalf Of Vint Cerf
> Sent: Friday, 21 August 2009 11:25 AM
> To: Gihan Dias
> Cc: idns; Patrik Fältström; idna-update at alvestrand.no; lisa Dusseault
> Subject: Re: Tamil Numerals in IDNA - Re: WG Last Call for Four Primary
> IDNABIS I-Ds
> 
> 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>
> 
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