Re: [idn] Document Status?

[John C Klensin <klensin@jck.com>]

--On Monday, September 02, 2002 10:40 AM +0800 James Seng
<jseng@pobox.org.sg> wrote:

>...
> Domain name deal with script. It has no capability to deal
> with language. When I write a domain name on a napkin (aka
> "the napkin test"), say "�代.com", and you give it to
> someone else, you have no way knowing this is a chinese or
> japanese or korean without me telling you (out-of-band
> communication).

Actually, James, domain names don't deal with scripts, either.
They deal with characters, chosen without restrictions from a
repertoire.  As long as that repertiore is, as the IDN WG has
specified so far, all of Unicode less some prohibited characters
(or, more precisely, code points) than any of the non-prohibited
Unicode characters can appear in a DNS name, in any order, with
no restriction to, e.g., script homogenity within a label.

> So in domain name, we cant do "multilingual". We do
> "internationalization". If you want "multilingual", you are
> not looking at domain name but something else.

Yes.  But, again, no restrictions to scripts either.

     john