Spanish (language)

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Label Generation Rules for Spanish

Overview

This document specifies a set of Label Generation Rules (LGR) for the Spanish language using a language-specific repertoire for the second level domain or domains identified above. The format of this file follows [RFC 7940]. This LGR is adapted from the “Reference LGR for the Second Level for the Spanish Language” [Ref-LGR-es-Latn], for details, see Change History below.

Standalone LGR: This LGR is designed to be used in a zone that does not cater to IDNs other than those valid under this LGR. This LGR lacks features that would allow its use in the context of another LGR in the same zone, and it may contain other features incompatible with such use.

Repertoire

Most references converge on 33 Latin code points.

There is no IDN table published in the IANA Repository of IDN Practices by a Spanish-language ccTLD, but several registries’ policies were investigated [700][701][703] for information on IDN repertoire policies.

Excluded Code Points

Letters documented in some references but not included:

• U+00E4 LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH DIAERESIS

• U+00E5 LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH RING ABOVE

• U+00E6 LATIN SMALL LETTER AE

• U+00EB LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH DIAERESIS

• U+00EE LATIN SMALL LETTER I WITH CIRCUMFLEX

• U+00F6 LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH DIAERESIS

• U+00F9 LATIN SMALL LETTER U WITH GRAVE

• U+00FB LATIN SMALL LETTER U WITH CIRCUMFLEX

• U+00FF LATIN SMALL LETTER Y WITH DIAERESIS

• U+0101 LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH MACRON

• U+0103 LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH BREVE

• U+0113 LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH MACRON

• U+0115 LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH BREVE

• U+012B LATIN SMALL LETTER I WITH MACRON

• U+012D LATIN SMALL LETTER I WITH BREVE

• U+014D LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH MACRON

• U+014F LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH BREVE

• U+0153 LATIN SMALL LIGATURE OE

• U+016B LATIN SMALL LETTER U WITH MACRON

• U+016D LATIN SMALL LETTER U WITH BREVE

Extended Code Points

A number of letters not considered essential to writing the core vocabulary of the language are nevertheless in common use. Where they have not been added to the core repertoire, they are flagged as “extended-cp” in the table of code points. A context rule is provided that by default will prohibit labels with such extended code points. To support extended single code points or code point sequences, delete the context “extended-cp” from their repertoire definition.

Spanish being used in a large number of countries complicates the question of determining an extended set. The extended code points defined here include both the extensions for Catalan, for Spanish users in Spain (see [700]), and for Portuguese, for Spanish users in, for example, Argentina (see [701]). Spanish users in other countries may need extensions for words or names from additional minority languages.

The extensions for Catalan include U+00B7 MIDDLE DOT for use in the sequence “l·l” for the Ela Geminada in Catalan. The LGR adds a context rule to satisfy the CONTEXTO constraint on U+00B7 MIDDLE DOT from RFC 5892 [122]. Note that the precomposed U+0140 LATIN LETTER SMALL L WITH MIDDLE DOT is DISALLOWED under IDNA 2008 [IDNAREG].

Variants

The LGR defines certain allocatable fallback variants as described in Section 4.5.5 “Allocatable Fallback Variants” in [Level-2-Overview]. A fallback variant is a variant label that uses substitute code points for code points or sequences not available (or not allowed) in some contexts, that would otherwise be required for a linguistically accurate rendering of some label.

When “fallback” variants are defined, two labels may be allocated: a single label with the spelling preferred by the applicant, plus a single fallback variant for that label. The fallback exclusively uses the fallback characters for any characters for which fallbacks are defined, while the “preferred” label may use any otherwise valid mix of code points. If the fallback variant is the one applied for, no other variant label is allocatable.

An allocatable fallback variant exists for the following pair where the second element is the fallback:

• U+00B7 MIDDLE DOT and U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS — the use of the hyphen as fallback for the middle dot in the Catalan Ela Geminada follows registry practice, see [704]. The variant is limited to an Ela Geminada context.

In-script Variant Mapping Types

In each of the fallback variant pairs defined above, the mapping type from the first element to the second is of type “fallback”, while the variant type for the other direction is “blocked”. In addition, the first element of each pair uses the reflexive mapping “r-original”. (By convention, the prefix “r-” marks a type used in a reflexive variant mapping, that is, it represents an instance of the original code point at that location in a variant label, see Section 5.3.4 in [RFC 7940].)

Variant Disposition: Except for limited exceptions for the fallback variants defined above, variants defined here result in a variant label disposition of “blocked”.

No other variants are applicable when using the LGR in a standalone fashion.

Variants Limited to Standalone Use This LGR is not intended for use with LGRs for other languages or scripts in the same zone. The LGR does not define any “blocked” variants with code points in other languages or script that would prevent malicious registration of duplicate labels perceived as the same by users. As a result of transitivity, the scheme of internal variants defined here would have to be imposed on other LGRs that contain copies or variants of the affected code points.

If it is desired to support multiple languages in the same zone, the preferred method would be to support the corresponding script LGRs, which cater to the use of multiple languages, and are designed with the possibility of concurrent use in mind.

The specification of variants in this LGR follows the guidelines in [RFC 8228].

Character Classes

This LGR does not define named character classes.

Rules

Common Rules

By default, the LGR includes the rules and actions to implement the following restrictions mandated by the IDNA protocol. They are marked with ⍟.

• Hyphen Restrictions — restrictions on the allowable placement of hyphens (no leading/ending hyphen and no hyphen in positions 3 and 4). These restrictions are described in Section 4.2.3.1 of RFC 5891 [150]. They are implemented here as context rule on U+002D (-) HYPHEN-MINUS.
• Leading Combining Marks — restrictions on the allowable placement of combining marks (no leading combining mark). This rule is described in Section 4.2.3.2 of RFC 5891 [150].

Language-specific Rules

The following context rule applies to U+00B7 MIDDLE DOT and its variants. It ensures that the middle dot is part of an Ela Geminada sequence and variants between it and HYPHEN-MINUS are only defined in that context.

• surrounded-by-L — code points are invalid and variants undefined when not surrounded by “l”

The following WLE rule invalidates labels in which two Ela Geminada sequences overlap.

• dot-L-dot — labels sharing a single “l” with two different middle dots are invalid

Actions

This LGR includes the default actions for LGRs as well as the action needed to invalidate labels with misplaced combining marks. They are marked with ⍟. For a description see [RFC 7940].

Because this LGR defines allocatable fallback variants the following default actions are applicable.

• blocked — a variant label containing a blocked variant will receive a disposition of “blocked”.
• r-original — a label containing one or more of this reflexive variant type and no others represents an original label and receives a disposition of “valid”.
• fallback — a label containing one or more of these variant types and no others represents a label that contains only fallback variants and receives a disposition of “allocatable”.
• fallback plus other — any label remaining containing both this variant type and any others receives a disposition of “blocked”.

These actions resolve as “allocatable” any label where all variants are of type “fallback”, and as “valid” any label where all variants are of type “r-original”. Labels with a mix of variant types are resolved as “blocked”.

To account for original code points in a permuted variant, reflexive variant mappings with an “r-” prefix are used. (See [RFC 7940]). In particular, the mapping type “r-original” is given to any code point that has a fallback mapping, but that appears in its non-fallback form in the original label, and thus “maps to itself”.

Language-specific Actions

An action has been defined to invalidate labels containing the sequence U+00B7 U+006C U+00B7 which could otherwise result in two Ela Geminada sequences overlapping.

Methodology and Contributors

The LGR in this document has been adapted from the corresponding Reference LGR for the Second Level. The Second Level Reference LGR for the Spanish Language was developed by Michel Suignard and Asmus Freytag, including input by Michael Everson, Nicholas Ostler, and Wil Tan, and based on multiple open public consultations.

Changes from Version Dated 10 October 2016

Language tag has been updated.

Changes from Version Dated 18 May 2021

Unicode Version has been updated.

Changes from Version Dated 24 January 2024

The treatment of U+00B7 MIDDLE DOT has been changed to match that of the Latin script LGR. This adds a fallback variant between "l·l" and "l-l".

Changes from Version Dated 25 October 2024

Adopted from the Second Level Reference LGR for the Spanish Language [Ref-LGR-es-Latn] without normative changes.

References

General references for the language:

• Maria Moliner, Diccionario del uso del español, Rba; 3rd edition (September 30, 2007), ISBN 978-8424928865

• Alvar Ezquerra, Manuel, ed. 1997. Diccionario avanzado lengua española. Barcelona: Vox. ISBN 84-7153-947-0

• Castillo, Carlos, & Otto F. Bond. 1987. The University of Chicago Spanish dictionary. Chicago&London: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-10400-8

• Wikipedia: “Spanish orthography”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_alphabet

• Omniglot: “Spanish (español/castellano)” https://www.omniglot.com/writing/spanish.htm

• Other references cited in this document:

  [IDNAREG]

  IANA Registry: “IDNA Parameters”. For Unicode 11.0 available at: https://www.iana.org/assignments/idna-tables-11.0.0/idna-tables-11.0.0.xml accessed on 2015-11-24

  [Level-2-Overview]

  Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, (ICANN),“Reference Label Generation Rules (LGR) for the Second Level: Overview and Summary” (PDF), (Los Angeles, California: ICANN, 25 October 2024), https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/level2-lgr-overview-summary-25oct24-en.pdf

  [Ref-LGR-es-Latn]

  ICANN, Second Level Reference Label Generation Rules for the Spanish Language (es-Latn), 25 October 2024 (XML) https://www.icann.org/sites/default/files/packages/lgr/lgr-second-level-spanish-language-25oct24-en.xml non-normative HTML presentation: https://www.icann.org/sites/default/files/packages/lgr/lgr-second-level-spanish-language-25oct24-en.html

  [RFC 7940]

  Davies, K. and A. Freytag, “Representing Label Generation Rulesets Using XML”, RFC 7940, August 2016, https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7940

  [RFC 8228]

  A. Freytag, “Guidance on Designing Label Generation Rulesets (LGRs) Supporting Variant Labels”, RFC 8228, August 2017, https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8228

  [Unicode 11.0.0]

  The Unicode Consortium. The Unicode Standard, Version 11.0.0, (Mountain View, CA: The Unicode Consortium, 2018. ISBN 978-1-936213-19-1) https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode11.0.0/

  In the listing of the repertoire by code point, references starting from [0] refer to the version of the Unicode Standard in which the corresponding code point was initially encoded. Other references (starting from [100]) document usage of code points. Entries in the table may have multiple source reference values. In the listing of whole label evaluation and context rules, reference [150] indicates the source for common rules. For more details, see the Table of References below.