i18n Fun

by Peter Saint-Andre

2011-03-22

I've been studying quite a bit over the last few months about internationalization ("i18n" for short). Here's a fun example I came up with -- my domain name expressed using Cherokee characters:

ᏚᎢᎵᏋᎢᏋᏒ.ᎥᎷ

For those of you keeping track at home, that's the following Unicode code points:

[U+13DA] [U+13A2] [U+13B5] [U+13CB] [U+13A2] [U+13CB] [U+13D2] [U+002E] [U+13A5] [U+13B7]

Although computers consider the Cherokee characters ᏚᎢᎵᏋᎢᏋᏒ.ᎥᎷ to be utterly different from the Latin characters STPETER.IM, the Cherokee characters are perfectly readable by most humans ("hey, what's that funky font you're using?"). Yet if you happen to copy https://ᏚᎢᎵᏋᎢᏋᏒ.ᎥᎷ/ into your browser or ᏚᎢᎵᏋᎢᏋᏒ@ᏚᎢᎵᏋᎢᏋᏒ.ᎥᎷ into your email client, you'll get some unexpected results.

Internationalization is endlessly amusing. :)


Peter Saint-Andre > Journal