[arabic-vip] WHOIS related query

[Siavash Shahshahani]

On Wed, 17 Aug 2011 05:30:42 -0700, Baher Esmat <baher.esmat at icann.org>
wrote:
> On 8/16/11 9:15 PM, "Steve Sheng" <steve.sheng at icann.org> wrote:
> 
>> Another question is a stupid question from me, how many variants could
an
>> Arabic label have? Is it in the order of 10s, 100s or 1000s we are
>> talking
>> about? This have obvious implications for WHOIS output and registry
WHOIS
>> services.  
> 
> If my memory serves me right, Raed Al-Fayez of (.sa), also a member of
the
> Arabic team, mentioned in a presentation at the ICANN meeting in
Singapore
> that there were cases of variants ­ as per (.sa) policy ­ where the
number
> of variants per a single label could be as many as ~64,000.
> 
> Baher

The order of magnitude really depends on how much of the Arabic script
table you want to implement as policy. ccTLDs usually use a small part of
the table, but even here things can get out of hand. For example, in Urdu,
the label <نننننننننننننننه> admits over 64000 variants(fortunately this is
probably not a meaningful word). For a gTLD that wants to address more than
one language community using Arabic script, things can get pretty
astronomical. A meaningful 5-character label like <یحیوی> admits 18
variants using the entire Arabic script table (Arabic and Persian Yeh and
Alef Maksura). Most registries probably set a limit on the number of
variants in a bundle thus outlawing artificially contrived labels.
Siavash