Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) K. Whistler
Request for Comments:
6082 Sybase, Inc.
Obsoletes:
2482 G. Adams
Category: Informational Skynav (Phil), Inc.
ISSN: 2070-1721 M. Duerst
Aoyama Gakuin University
R. Presuhn, Ed.
J. Klensin
November 2010
Deprecating Unicode Language Tag Characters:
RFC 2482 is Historic
Abstract
RFC 2482, "Language Tagging in Unicode Plain Text", describes a
mechanism for using special Unicode language tag characters to
identify languages when needed without more general markup such as
that provided by XML. The Unicode Consortium has deprecated that
facility and strongly recommends against its use.
RFC 2482 has been
moved to Historic status to reduce the possibility that Internet
implementers would consider that system an appropriate mechanism for
identifying languages.
Status of This Memo
This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
published for informational purposes.
This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has
received public review and has been approved for publication by the
Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Not all documents
approved by the IESG are a candidate for any level of Internet
Standard; see
Section 2 of RFC 5741.
Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6082.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2010 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction ....................................................2
2. Action ..........................................................2
3. Security Considerations .........................................3
4. Acknowledgments .................................................3
5. References ......................................................3
5.1. Normative References .......................................3
5.2. Informative References .....................................3
1. Introduction
RFC 2482, "Language Tagging in Unicode Plain Text" [
RFC2482],
describes a mechanism for using special Unicode language tag
characters to identify languages when needed. It is an idea whose
time never quite came. It has been superseded by whole-transaction
language identification such as the MIME Content-language header
[
RFC3282] and more general markup mechanisms such as those provided
by XML. The Unicode Consortium has deprecated the language tag
character facility and strongly recommends against its use.
RFC 2482 has been moved to Historic status to reduce the possibility that
Internet implementers would consider that tagging system an
appropriate mechanism for identifying languages.
A discussion of the status of the language tag characters and their
applicability appears in Section 16.9 of The Unicode Standard
[Unicode52].
2. Action
RFC 2482 has been deprecated and reclassified as Historic. Internet
protocols and Standards-Track documents should not use the facilities
described in that document.
3. Security Considerations
By deprecating
RFC 2482, we eliminate a facility that is no longer
encouraged or supported by the Unicode Consortium and that may have
been slightly risky in use if misinterpreted or if expectations of
support were not met. So, if this action has any effect on Internet
security at all, it should be positive.
4. Acknowledgments
Helpful comments were received from Peter Koch and S. Moonesamy.
5. References
5.1. Normative References
[
RFC2482] Whistler, K. and G. Adams, "Language Tagging in Unicode
Plain Text",
RFC 2482, January 1999.
[Unicode52] The Unicode Consortium. The Unicode Standard, Version
5.2.0, defined by: "The Unicode Standard, Version
5.2.0", (Mountain View, CA: The Unicode Consortium,
2009. ISBN 978-1-936213-00-9).
<
http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode5.2.0/>.
5.2. Informative References
[
RFC3282] Alvestrand, H., "Content Language Headers",
RFC 3282,
May 2002.