RFC 5564
Linguistic Guidelines for the Use of the Arabic Language in Internet Domains
Linguistic Guidelines for the Use of the Arabic Language in Internet Domains 🎀
Okay bestie, this one is RFC 5564, an Independent Submission, published in February 2010 as Informational (so not a Standards Track spec, just vibes and guidance 💅). The authors are A. El-Sherbiny and M. Farah from UN-ESCWA, I. Oueichek from the Syrian Telecom Establishment, and A. Al-Zoman from SaudiNIC, CITC. It doesn't obsolete or update any other RFCs according to its header. The ISSN is 2070-1721.
Abstract
This doc is all about the technical specs for using Arabic in Internet domain names, plus linguistic guidelines for Arabic domain names. It covers the Arabic-specific language stuff that comes up when you use Arabic in domain names. Main character energy 🌸
Status of This Memo
Not a standards-track spec, just published for info purposes 🧚
This is a contribution to the RFC Series, separate from any other RFC stream. The RFC Editor chose to publish it at their discretion and makes no statement about its value for implementation or deployment. Docs approved by the RFC Editor are not candidates for any level of Internet Standard, see Section 2 of RFC 5741.
For the current status, errata, and how to give feedback, check http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5564 🔗
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2010 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved 📜
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) as they're in effect on the publication date. Please actually read these, because they explain your rights and restrictions for this doc, ngl 🙈
This document may not be modified, and derivative works of it may not be created, except to format it for publication as an RFC or to translate it into languages other than English. So no remixing it, bestie 🚫
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ....................................................2
2. Arabic Language-Specific Issues .................................3
2.1. Linguistic Issues ..........................................4
2.1.1. Diacritics (Tashkeel) and Shadda ....................4
2.1.2. Kasheeda or Tatweel (Horizontal Character
Size Extension) .....................................5
2.1.3. Character Folding ...................................5
2.2. Supported Character Set ....................................6
2.3. Arabic Linguistic Issues Affected by Technical
Constraints ................................................8
2.3.1. Numerals ............................................8
2.3.2. The Space Character .................................8
3. Summary and Conclusion ..........................................8
4. Security Considerations .........................................9
5. Acknowledgments .................................................9
6. References ......................................................9
6.1. Normative References .......................................9
6.2. Informative References .....................................91. Introduction ✨
Okay so back in March 2003 the IETF put out a set of RFCs for Internationalized Domain Names (IDN), which are [1], [2], and [3]. The plan was for them to become the de facto standard for every language 🌈 Then in 2007 and 2008, some working drafts came out proposing revisions to the IDNA protocol:
- Internationalized Domain Names for Applications (IDNA): Background, Explanation, and Rationale [5]
- Internationalized Domain Names in Applications (IDNA): Protocol [6]
- An updated IDNA criterion for right-to-left scripts [7]
- The Unicode code points and IDNA [8]
People call these collectively "IDNA2008" 💜
This document is a technical spec for putting the IDN standards into practice for Arabic. It lets you write domain names in Arabic characters using standard language tables. So think of it as a logical extension of the IDN standards, giving guidance on using Arabic characters with IDN in an Arabic language context. It's giving organized 💅
This doc reflects recommendations from the Arab Working Group on Arabic Domain Names (AWG-ADN), which the League of Arab States (LAS) set up. It's based on standardisation work from the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UN-ESCWA), and on that group's document "Guidelines for an Arabic Internet Domain Name" [9]. It also lines up with recent, rigorous discussions in the major language communities that use the Arabic script 🫶
This doc gives guidelines on how Arabic characters can be used to register Internet domain names, and how the linguistic-specific issues should be handled. A few rules are recommended for protocol-level application 🔥
The key words "MUST", "REQUIRED", "SHOULD", "RECOMMENDED", and "MAY" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [4]. (Yes, these are the capital-letter rules, and they're the only capitals you'll see here 🙈)
Comments on this document are welcome. Send them to the working group's mailing list at ESCWA-ICTD@un.org and/or to the author(s) 📬
2. Arabic Language-Specific Issues 🌸
The main goal behind Arabic domain names is to give Arabic speakers, across all strata of their communities, a vehicle for using the Internet more 🙌
A domain name that's not user-friendly would add to the ambiguity and the eccentricity of the Internet for Arabic-speaking communities. That contributes negatively to spreading the Internet and leads to further isolation of these communities at the global level 😭 Not it!
So there have been some intense efforts (especially those spearheaded by Dr. Al-Zoman, with help from UN-ESCWA and its Arabic Domain Names Task Force (ADN-TF)) to reach consensus on a bunch of linguistic issues. The goals are:
- To define the accepted Arabic character set for writing domain names in Arabic, which is the subject of this document.
- To define the top-level domains of the Arabic domain name tree structure (that is, Arabic gTLDs and ccTLDs). This goal will be handled in a separate document.
The first AWG-ADN meeting, held in Damascus from January-February 2005, gave special attention to the following:
- Simplifying domain names whenever possible, so Arabic users can interact with the Internet more easily.
- Adopting solutions that don't cause confusion in reading or writing, as long as that doesn't compromise the linguistic correctness of the words used.
- Mixing Arabic and non-Arabic letters in a domain name label is not acceptable. Absolutely not 🚫
2.1. Linguistic Issues 💖
A bunch of linguistic issues have been proposed for using Arabic in domain names, and this section highlights some of them. It's based on Dr. Al-Zoman's papers ([10] and [11]) and on the report from the first AWG-ADN meeting [12]. If you want the details, go read those references, they're worth it ✨
2.1.1. Diacritics (Tashkeel) and Shadda 🎀
Tashkeel and Shadda are accent marks placed above or below Arabic letters to produce proper pronunciation. They're used to tell apart different meanings for words that have the same base characters 🧚
Neither Tashkeel nor Shadda is permitted in zone files when registering domain names in Arabic. They are permitted in the current edition of IDNA2008, though. They can be supported or ignored in the user interface, if necessary, with local mappings, and they can be stripped before IDNA processing 🍓
Their Unicode presentations are:
U+064B ARABIC FATHATAN
U+064C ARABIC DAMMATAN
U+064D ARABIC KASRATAN
U+064E ARABIC FATHA
U+064F ARABIC DAMMA
U+0650 ARABIC KASRA
U+0651 ARABIC SHADDA
U+0652 ARABIC SUKUN2.1.2. Kasheeda or Tatweel (Horizontal Character Size Extension) 🦋
Kasheeda (U+0640 ARABIC TATWEEL) must not be used in Arabic domain names, and it should be disallowed for Arabic language domain names. It's not a letter and it doesn't affect pronunciation. It just stretches the horizontal length or changes the shape of the letter before it, for graphical purposes in Arabic writing. So it has no value for writing domain names. The same applies to all languages that use the Arabic script 🙈
The authors recommend that it should be disallowed at the protocol level. This one's a big deal, so read it twice ✨
2.1.3. Character Folding 🌈
Character folding is when multiple letters (that may look similar in shape) get folded into one shape. Examples of such Arabic characters include:
- Folding Teh Marbuta (
U+0629) and Heh (U+0647) at the end of a word - Folding different forms of Hamzah (
U+0622,U+0623,U+0625,U+0627) - Folding Alef Maksura (
U+0649) and Yeh (U+064A) at the end of a word - Folding Waw with Hamzah Above (
U+0624) and Waw (U+0648)
For the Arabic language, character folding is not acceptable, because it changes the meaning of words and goes against the principle of spelling rules. Swapping a character that's valid in domain names for another valid one with a similar shape gives a different meaning. That leads to one word standing in for several words, all the combinations of the folded characters. So the other words get masked by a single word [10]. Not cute 😭
Mis-spelling and handwriting errors do happen, which mixes up different characters, even though that doesn't happen in published and printed materials. One of the motivations behind this effort is to preserve the language, especially with the spread of globalization. Character folding works against that motivation, since it would hurt the principle and ethics of the language. Technology should work to preserve the language, not destroy it 💜 So character folding should not be allowed. The case of digits is treated in a separate section below, and that's where we pick up in part 2 👀
2.2. Supported Character Set 💅
Okay so, a domain name written in Arabic must be made of a sequence of the UNICODE characters below, plus the FULL STOP (u+002E) to separate the labels 💖. These are based on UNICODE version 5.0. The tables are built with an inclusion-based approach, so anything that isn't in these tables is prohibited 🚫.
+---------+-------------------------------------+
| Unicode | Character Name |
+---------+-------------------------------------+
| 0621 | ARABIC LETTER HAMZA |
| 0622 | ARABIC LETTER ALEF WITH MADDA ABOVE |
| 0623 | ARABIC LETTER ALEF WITH HAMZA ABOVE |
| 0624 | ARABIC LETTER WAW WITH HAMZA ABOVE |
| 0625 | ARABIC LETTER ALEF WITH HAMZA BELOW |
| 0626 | ARABIC LETTER YEH WITH HAMZA ABOVE |
| 0627 | ARABIC LETTER ALEF |
| 0628 | ARABIC LETTER BEH |
| 0629 | ARABIC LETTER TEH MARBUTA |
| 062A | ARABIC LETTER TEH |
| 062B | ARABIC LETTER THEH |
| 062C | ARABIC LETTER JEEM |
| 062D | ARABIC LETTER HAH |
| 062E | ARABIC LETTER KHAH |
| 062F | ARABIC LETTER DAL |
| 0630 | ARABIC LETTER THAL |
| 0631 | ARABIC LETTER REH |
| 0632 | ARABIC LETTER ZAIN |
| 0633 | ARABIC LETTER SEEN |
| 0634 | ARABIC LETTER SHEEN |
| 0635 | ARABIC LETTER SAD |
| 0636 | ARABIC LETTER DAD |
| 0637 | ARABIC LETTER TAH |
| 0638 | ARABIC LETTER ZAH |
| 0639 | ARABIC LETTER AIN |
| 063A | ARABIC LETTER GHAIN |
| 0641 | ARABIC LETTER FEH |
| 0642 | ARABIC LETTER QAF |
| 0643 | ARABIC LETTER KAF |
| 0644 | ARABIC LETTER LAM |
| 0645 | ARABIC LETTER MEEM |
| 0646 | ARABIC LETTER NOON |
| 0647 | ARABIC LETTER HEH |
| 0648 | ARABIC LETTER WAW |
| 0649 | ARABIC LETTER ALEF MAKSURA |
| 064A | ARABIC LETTER YEH |
| 0660 | ARABIC-INDIC DIGIT ZERO |
| 0661 | ARABIC-INDIC DIGIT ONE |
| 0662 | ARABIC-INDIC DIGIT TWO |
| 0663 | ARABIC-INDIC DIGIT THREE |
| 0664 | ARABIC-INDIC DIGIT FOUR |
| 0665 | ARABIC-INDIC DIGIT FIVE |
| 0666 | ARABIC-INDIC DIGIT SIX |
| 0667 | ARABIC-INDIC DIGIT SEVEN |
| 0668 | ARABIC-INDIC DIGIT EIGHT |
| 0669 | ARABIC-INDIC DIGIT NINE |
+---------+-------------------------------------+Source: Supporting the Arabic Language in Domain Names [10]
Table 1: CHARACTERS FROM UNICODE ARABIC TABLE (0600-06FF)
+---------+-----------------+
| Unicode | Digit Name |
+---------+-----------------+
| 0030 | DIGIT ZERO |
| 0031 | DIGIT ONE |
| 0032 | DIGIT TWO |
| 0033 | DIGIT THREE |
| 0034 | DIGIT FOUR |
| 0035 | DIGIT FIVE |
| 0036 | DIGIT SIX |
| 0037 | DIGIT SEVEN |
| 0038 | DIGIT EIGHT |
| 0039 | DIGIT NINE |
| 002D | HYPHEN-MINUS |
+---------+-----------------+Source: Supporting the Arabic Language in Domain Names [10]
Table 2: CHARACTERS FROM UNICODE BASIC LATIN TABLE (0000-007F)
2.3. Arabic Linguistic Issues Affected by Technical Constraints 🧠
In this section we're diving into the technical side of some linguistic issues ✨.
2.3.1. Numerals 🔢
In the Arab countries, two sets of numerical digits are used:
- Set I:
0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9is mostly used in the western part of the Arab world. - Set II:
u+0660, u+0661, u+0662, u+0663, u+0664, u+0665, u+0666, u+0667, u+0668, u+0669is mostly used in the eastern part of the Arab world.
Both sets may be supported in the user interface, however the rule of numeral homogeneity must be observed 🙈. The rule says that digits from the Arabic-Indic set of numerals (u+0660 to u+0669) should not be allowed to mix with ASCII digits (u+0030 to u+0039) within the same Arabic domain name label. So the appearance of a digit from one set prevents the use of any other digit from the other set.
2.3.2. The Space Character 🌸
The space character is strictly disallowed in domain names, since it's a control character 🙅♀️. Instead, the hyphen (Al-sharta, i.e., u+02D) is proposed as a separator between Arabic words, so the words don't get confused when they're typed without a separator.
It is acceptable to use the hyphen to separate words within the same domain name label 🦋.
3. Summary and Conclusion 🎀
The proposed guidelines are in full accordance with the IETF IDN standards, and they take Arabic-language-specific issues into account. It's a compromise between the grammatical rules of the Arabic language and ease of use of that language on the Internet 💜.
In summary, the guidelines specify that, in Arabic domain names:
- Accent marks (Tashkeel and Shadda) are not permitted.
- Character folding is not permitted.
- If a numeral from the Arabic-Indic or ASCII digit sets appears in a label, numeral homogeneity is required.
- The hyphen must be used as a word separator instead of space.
4. Security Considerations 🔒
No particular security considerations could be identified regarding the use of Arabic characters in writing domain names. In particular, any potential visual confusion between different character strings is avoided using the guidelines proposed in this document 👑.
5. Acknowledgments 🫶
ESCWA ICT Division provided support and funding for the development of this document, with the objective of reaching a standard for comprehensive Arabic domain names. Thanks are due to SaudiNIC for its continuous efforts in supporting the development of Arabic domain names 🌈.
John Klensin and Harald Alvestrand reviewed the document and provided useful editorial and substantive support to enrich it 🧚.
6. References 📚
6.1. Normative References
[1] Faltstrom, P., Hoffman, P., and A. Costello, "Internationalizing Domain Names in Applications (IDNA)", RFC 3490, March 2003.
[2] Hoffman, P. and M. Blanchet, "Nameprep: A Stringprep Profile for Internationalized Domain Names (IDN)", RFC 3491, March 2003.
[3] Costello, A., "Punycode: A Bootstring encoding of Unicode for Internationalized Domain Names in Applications (IDNA)", RFC 3492, March 2003.
[4] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
6.2. Informative References
[5] Klensin, J., "Internationalized Domain Names for Applications (IDNA): Definitions, Background and Rationale", Work in Progress, September 2008.
[6] Klensin, J., "Internationalized Domain Names in Applications (IDNA): Protocol", Work in Progress, September 2008.
[7] Alvestrand, H. and C. Karp, "An updated IDNA criterion for right-to-left scripts", Work in Progress, July 2008.
[8] Faltstrom, P., "The Unicode Codepoints and IDNA", Work in Progress, July 2008.
[9] United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UN-ESCWA), "Guidelines for an Arabic Domain Name System (ADNS)", Work in Progress, November 2007.
[10] Al-Zoman, A., "Supporting the Arabic Language in Domain Names", October 2003, <http://www.arabic-domains.org/docs/NIC-docs/SupportingArabicDmainNmaes.pdf>.
[11] Al-Zoman, A., "Arabic Top-Level Domains", Paper presented in Expert Group Meeting on Promotion of Digital Arabic Content, the United Nations, Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, Beirut, June 2003.
[12] League of Arab States, "Report of the first meeting of AWG-ADN, Damascus", February 2005, <http://www.arabic-domains.org/ar/intrnational-entites.php>.
Authors' Addresses 🧚♀️
Ayman El-Sherbiny
Information and Communication Technology Division ESCWA
UN-House
P.O. Box 11-8575
Beirut
Lebanon
EMail: El-sherbiny@un.org
Mansour Farah
Information and Communication Technology Division ESCWA
UN-House
P.O. Box 11-8575
Beirut
Lebanon
EMail: farah14@un.org
Ibaa Oueichek
Syrian Telecom Establishment
Damascus
Syria
EMail: oueichek@scs-net.org
Abdulaziz H. Al-Zoman, PhD
SaudiNIC, General Directorate of Internet Services
IT Sector, CITC
King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology
PO Box 6086
Riyadh 11442
Saudi Arabia
EMail: azoman@citc.gov.sa📦 where this page comes from
- ietf: rfc5564 2010-02
- 💖 girlified by claude-haiku-5-5 on : a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms