Ukrainian experts raise apostrophe question in Ukrainian domain names to ICANN
Currently, the International Organization for the Assignment of Names and Numbers (ICANN) is in the process of developing rules and recommendations for the introduction of a new IDN gTLD program (international top-level domains).
The working group on Cyrillic domains includes two experts from the company Ukrnames .
During discussions at ICANN, we raised a question that is very important for the future Ukrainian domain, namely the use of an apostrophe in Ukrainian domain names.
An apostrophe is a very important symbol in the Ukrainian language - a large percentage of Ukrainian words contain an apostrophe. However, the symbol that is commonly used to indicate an apostrophe (single quote in the English layout) is prohibited for use in domain names.
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For the English language, this is not so critical, although there are also incidents, for example, the words can and cant obviously mean completely different things. But, apparently, the English-speaking part of humanity is ready to put up with it.
For the Ukrainian language, the apostrophe is the more important part, if in English it is a punctuation mark, in Ukrainian it is more likely a letter, and often used. After all, even if we take the spelling of numbers from 0 to 9, in two of them there is an apostrophe. For those who do not speak Ukrainian, but speak Russian, the apostrophe in Ukrainian is like a solid sign in Russian.
Given that the symbol U + 0027 (single quote or apostrophe in Latin), according to the standards, is prohibited for use in domain names, when applying for a domain. UCR, the Ukrainian Network Information Center (UCLI) selected U + 02BC APOSTROPHE), which satisfies the Internet standards and theoretically can be used as an apostrophe in Ukrainian domain names. The reservation of this symbol under the apostrophe seems to be a good solution, and it seems to us that it deserves the support of the Ukrainian Internet community. It is very important to lay the foundation for the full use of the Ukrainian language in Ukrainian domain names, since it is now determined how to be the Ukrainian Internet for decades to come.
The Unicode standard says that this character serves as a letter in many alphabets. Although this symbol does not conflict with Internet standards, ICANN is not thrilled with this idea. After all, at one time, they refused to use the English apostrophe in domain names. But we believe that for the Ukrainian language it is not worth artificially introducing restrictions that seemed to be natural technical restrictions 20 years ago.
Fortunately, the technique currently allows for the use of such a symbol and we will continue to insist on this possibility, because without using the apostrophe, the Ukrainian language ceases to be Ukrainian and, accordingly, we will not receive full domain names in our native language.
On the one hand, ICANN seeks to keep up with technical realities, but on the other hand, it is psychologically difficult to give up “seemingly natural” restrictions, even though they already have almost no sense. Now, when we are at the stage of developing recommendations and standards, this is just a good time to abandon these restrictions, and we are glad that we can defend the interests of the Ukrainian Internet community in global Internet processes.
Links to apostrophe discussions in the ICANN working group:
http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/cyrillic-vip/2011-July/000039.html
http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/cyrillic-vip/2011-July/000040.html
http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/cyrillic-vip/2011-July/000041.html
The working group on Cyrillic domains includes two experts from the company Ukrnames .
During discussions at ICANN, we raised a question that is very important for the future Ukrainian domain, namely the use of an apostrophe in Ukrainian domain names.
An apostrophe is a very important symbol in the Ukrainian language - a large percentage of Ukrainian words contain an apostrophe. However, the symbol that is commonly used to indicate an apostrophe (single quote in the English layout) is prohibited for use in domain names.
')
For the English language, this is not so critical, although there are also incidents, for example, the words can and cant obviously mean completely different things. But, apparently, the English-speaking part of humanity is ready to put up with it.
For the Ukrainian language, the apostrophe is the more important part, if in English it is a punctuation mark, in Ukrainian it is more likely a letter, and often used. After all, even if we take the spelling of numbers from 0 to 9, in two of them there is an apostrophe. For those who do not speak Ukrainian, but speak Russian, the apostrophe in Ukrainian is like a solid sign in Russian.
Given that the symbol U + 0027 (single quote or apostrophe in Latin), according to the standards, is prohibited for use in domain names, when applying for a domain. UCR, the Ukrainian Network Information Center (UCLI) selected U + 02BC APOSTROPHE), which satisfies the Internet standards and theoretically can be used as an apostrophe in Ukrainian domain names. The reservation of this symbol under the apostrophe seems to be a good solution, and it seems to us that it deserves the support of the Ukrainian Internet community. It is very important to lay the foundation for the full use of the Ukrainian language in Ukrainian domain names, since it is now determined how to be the Ukrainian Internet for decades to come.
The Unicode standard says that this character serves as a letter in many alphabets. Although this symbol does not conflict with Internet standards, ICANN is not thrilled with this idea. After all, at one time, they refused to use the English apostrophe in domain names. But we believe that for the Ukrainian language it is not worth artificially introducing restrictions that seemed to be natural technical restrictions 20 years ago.
Fortunately, the technique currently allows for the use of such a symbol and we will continue to insist on this possibility, because without using the apostrophe, the Ukrainian language ceases to be Ukrainian and, accordingly, we will not receive full domain names in our native language.
On the one hand, ICANN seeks to keep up with technical realities, but on the other hand, it is psychologically difficult to give up “seemingly natural” restrictions, even though they already have almost no sense. Now, when we are at the stage of developing recommendations and standards, this is just a good time to abandon these restrictions, and we are glad that we can defend the interests of the Ukrainian Internet community in global Internet processes.
Links to apostrophe discussions in the ICANN working group:
http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/cyrillic-vip/2011-July/000039.html
http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/cyrillic-vip/2011-July/000040.html
http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/cyrillic-vip/2011-July/000041.html
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/124134/
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