This document specifies a set of Label Generation Rules (LGR) for the Belarusian 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 Belarusian Language” [Ref-LGR-be-Cyrl], 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.
All references converge on 32 Cyrillic code points (23 + 9 as defined by RFC 5992 [130]). One source [302], lists U+0449 CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER SHCHA and U+044A CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER HARD SIGN as rare in Belarusian; these appear to be used in Russian words or names, not in Belarusian words and names themselves. In Russian, the hard sign indicates the non-palatalization of a consonant preceding a morpheme beginning with a iotated vowel; in Belarusian this function is met by the use of an apostrophe or of U+02BC MODIFIER LETTER APOSTROPHE.
Note that, while U+02BC MODIFIER LETTER APOSTROPHE is used in Belarusian and is protocol valid (PVALID) in IDNA2008; other forms of apostrophes such as U+0027 APOSTROPHE or U+2019 RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK are DISALLOWED. As [RFC 6912] points out, in a public zone, many users may read U+02BC as indistinguishable from the regular apostrophe. Therefore, following the principle of conservatism, and in response to a comment made by the IAB during public comment proceedings, the code point U+02BC is not included here.
There is an IDN table published in the IANA Repository of IDN Practices for Belarus, not under ‘.by’ (Belarus cctld), but under the TLD .бел also administered by Belarus, see [700]. The following text is excerpted from clause 7 from its General Provisions:
"A domain name in domain “.бел” must contain not less than two and no more than sixty three letters of Belarusian or Russian alphabet, numbers, symbols, “hyphen” (“-”) and “apostrophe” (“ ’ ”), it must not begin (end) with the symbol “hyphen” (“-”) and (or) “apostrophe” (“ ’ ”). When choosing a domain name one should consider writing of the domains on Russian and Belarusian."
That policy supports a combination of both Belarusian and Russian in the same label and, contrary to this LGR, it also caters for support of U+02BC, albeit with a rule concerning the position of apostrophe within a label: neither leading nor ending.
While the Acute accent may be used as a stress mark on the vowel of a syllable or to disambiguate between minimal pairs, this use is rare and not supported here. See “Stress and Disambiguation” in [ACUTE].
There is some attested use of U+0438 CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER I, U+0449 CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER SHCHA, U+044A CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER HARD SIGN, and U+0491 CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER GHE WITH UPTURN, but they seem to be only used as borrowed letters from Russian and/or Ukrainian. These 4 letters are part of the extended set.
All letters in some references but not included:
U+02BC MODIFIER LETTER APOSTROPHE
U+0430 U+0301 CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER A WITH ACUTE ACCENT
U+0435 U+0301 CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER IE WITH ACUTE ACCENT
U+043E U+0301 CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER O WITH ACUTE ACCENT
U+0443 U+0301 CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER U WITH ACUTE ACCENT
U+044B U+0301 CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER YERU WITH ACUTE ACCENT
U+044D U+0301 CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER E WITH ACUTE ACCENT
U+044E U+0301 CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER YU WITH ACUTE ACCENT
U+044F U+0301 CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER YA WITH ACUTE ACCENT
U+0451 U+0301 CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER IO WITH ACUTE ACCENT
U+0456 U+0301 CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER BYELORUSSIAN-UKRAINIAN I WITH ACUTE ACCENT
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.
Any code points outside the Belarusian Language repertoire that are targets for out-of-repertoire variants would be included here only if the variant is listed in this file. In this case they are identified as a reflexive (identity) variant of type “out-of-repertoire-var”. Whether or not they are listed, they do not form part of the repertoire.
There are no variants defined between Cyrillic letters.
No ASCII Variants: Note that this LGR does not contain definitions for “blocked” variants for letters that look indistinguishable from ASCII letters (homoglyphs). If concurrent use of LDH labels is desired, the resulting conflicts can be handled by using the “Common LGR” in processing. For details, see Section 3, “Use of Multiple Reference LGRs in the Same Zone” in [Level-2-Overview].
This LGR does not define named character classes.
By default, the LGR includes the rules and actions to implement the following restrictions mandated by the IDNA protocol. They are marked with ⍟.
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].
The LGR in this document has been adapted from the corresponding Reference LGR for the Second Level. The Second Level Reference LGR for the Belarusian 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.
Language tag has been updated.
Unicode Version has been updated.
Adopted from the Second Level Reference LGR for the Belarusian Language [Ref-LGR-be-Cyrl] without normative changes.
General references for the language:
Mayo, Peter. 1993. “Belorussian”, in Bernard Comrie & Greville G. Corbett, eds. The Slavonic languages. London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-04755-2
Ushkevich, Alexander, & Alexandra Zezulin. 1992. Byelorussian-English English Byelorussian dictionary with compete phonetics. New York: Hippocrene Books. ISBN 0-87052-114-4
Other references cited in this document:
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.
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