Hebrew and IDN

Benny Lipsicas, Doron Shikmoni

ISOC-IL

benny@isoc.org.il

ccTLD ICANN meeting - Rome, March 2004

Attributes of Hebrew

- Special alphabet:

א ב ג ד ה ו ז ח ט י כ ך ל מ ם נ ן ס ע פ ף צ ץ ק ר ש ת

- 27 Chars (22 Basic chars + 5 Ending forms)

- Bidirectional:

- Letters:	written Right To Left ("RTL")

- Digits:	written Left To Right ("LTR")

- Other bidirectional languages: Arabic, Farsi, Urdu ...

IDN

(1) RFCs:	LTR scrpits & RTL scrpits MUST NOT be on	same label (3454).

Result:





(2) ICANN: TLD to remain in Latin characters.

Result: Hebrew Domain Names must be	a combination of RTL & LTR labels.

Problems with "mixed" domains (1)

(1) Confusion between levels:

TLD

4th level

2nd level

3rd level

TLD

2nd level

3rd level

4th level

but:

Problems with "mixed" domains (2)

(1) Confusion between levels (cont.):

TLD

2nd level

3rd level

4th level

2nd level

4th level

3rd level

TLD

but:

RTL mode in Browser:

LTR mode in Browser:

Problems with "mixed" domains (3)

(2) Non-trivial typing:

h

o

s

t

.

א

אי

איז

איזה

איזה.בל

איזה.בלג

איזה.בלגן

.

i

l

איזה.

איזה.ב

h

ho

hos

host

.

א

י

ז

ה

.

ב

ל

ג

ן

.

i

il

Alt+shift

Alt+shift

Alt+shift

Alt+shift

Alt+shift

Result

(1) Attactivness of Hebrew Domain Names is questionable.

(2) Original goal of IDN missed?

Solution?

(1) A uni-directional Domain Name (i.e. Hebrew TLD ...)

(2) Careful implementation policy and user education, i.e., non-technical.

Thank You!

תודה רבה!

בני ליפסיקס

2004-02-09T13:12:17

בני �?יפסיקס