Re: [idn] Document Status?

[YangWoo Ko <newcat@spsoft.co.kr>]

Dear John Klensin,
   
Thanks for kind reply but it does little help without clearly sorting  
out which issues are "multiligual" ones while others are not. Another
answer which should be prepared is how to avoid those "multilingual"
issues wisely enough not to ruin "internatinalization".
  
With my best regards

On Sun, Sep 01, 2002 at 11:42:30PM -0400, John C Klensin wrote:
> --On Monday, September 02, 2002 12:25 PM +0900 YangWoo Ko
> <yw@mrko.pe.kr> wrote:
> 
> > Within the context of Domain Name, can somebody teach me the
> > benefit of using "script" instead of "language", or its
> > reverse ? Can somebody teach me the benefit of using
> > "multilingualization" instead of "internationalization" ? I am
> > lost.
> 
> Let me try, with the understanding that there is great confusion
> about these terms (i.e., you are not the only one who is lost)
> and that they tend to cause arguments all out of proportion to
> their value.
> 
> "multilingual" and its variants seem to be properly used only
> when _language_ issues (syntax, methods of forming words or
> phrases, legitimate word or phrase construction, etc.) are
> involved.  Since there have been no serious proposals to
> incorporate _language_ issues like these into the DNS (although
> some proposals have assumed it is there already or will happen
> by magic), the term is typically inappropriate for DNS contexts
> (even though it is often used).
> 
> A "script" is a collection of characters used to write one or
> more languages.  As James pointed out, some languages use more
> than one script (e.g., there are some European and, I think,
> African languages that can be written in different character
> collections, although the language remains the same.   The use
> of Hangul or Hanji to write Korean, or of Hiragana or Kanji to
> write Japanese, may be another example of this, although it is
> important to remember that analogies in these areas are never
> exact and that over-using them often leads to trouble.  We also
> have, as James again pointed out, the same script (sometimes
> with small variations) use to write several different languages.
> Arabic script is also used to write other languages, Roman-based
> scripts are used to write German and French and several other
> languages in addition to English and Italian, and so on.   So,
> if all one can talk about is the characters being used (and
> coded), without reference to the language involved, "script" is
> probably appropriate.
> 
> "internationalization" is an extremely broad term, used to
> describe, I believe, any attempt to get ones arms around this
> mess and, in particular, make systems suitable for use by people
> all over the world, regardless of the script or language they
> normally use.
> 
> Does that help?
> 
>      john

-- 
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  Ko, YangWoo : newcat@spsoft.co.kr / SPSoft
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