International Components for Unicode - Viet Nam

I was introduced to the website of International Components for Unicode
which is hosted by IBM at http://oss.software.ibm.com/icu/

The site contains Interenationalisation packages for a number of languages
including Vietnamese. This information is, I understand, used with a
number of platforms, apparently including Microsoft (?). Apple is now using ICU
formatting. The latest version 2.8 was released in November.

I have some questions about the information that is given for Viet Nam and
as a non-expert in that language, I would like to ask some experts.

The locale information for Viet Nam is on the Locale Explorer
http://oss.software.ibm.com/cgi-bin/icu/lx

and the specific page for viet Nam is:

http://oss.software.ibm.com/cgi-bin/icu/lx/en/utf-8/?_=vi&SHOWCountries=1#Countries

My first question is whether MOST or TCVN have had a chance to input information to
this library.

I have some specific questions.

I am not aware that the sort order (plain ` ? ~ ' .) has been formalised by
the Government of Viet Nam. My impression, discussing this with officials from the
Ministry of Science and Technology a couple years ago was that this was not yet
established.

Second, in the regional display, it is not commonly the case now that the sylables
in country country names are separated by dashes. In fact the format is inconsistent.
Sometimes one word, sometimes no dashes and occasionally still dashes. In general,
dashes in words used to be a format common in the South 30 years ago but as far as I
know, this practice has disappeared. Some of the formal names, for instance Australia
and USA are a little unfamilair to me. I do not see that there is room for alternate
forms.

January can be Tháng một or Tháng giêng are alterante forms. But I had
assumed that Tháng giêng was preferred. I understand that there is some
potential for confusion with days in the lunar calendar. Which raises the important
problem in Viet Nam that we use both the Gregorian and Lunar calendars buty ICU appears
to allow only one of these.

Finally, I am a little surprised that no ICU libraries exist for Khmer and Lao.

I am wondering if others can comment on these issues.

Vern

--
Vern Weitzel (Mr.), Webmanager
<vern.weitzel@undp.org> NEW EMAIL ADDRESS
or <webmanager@undp.org.vn>
United Nations Development Programme
address: 25-29 Phan Boi Chau; Ha Noi, Viet Nam
postal address:
UNDP Viet Nam One UN Plaza New York, NY 10017 USA
UNDP Viet Nam Palais des Nations 1211 Geneva Switzerland
UNDP Viet Nam GPO Box 618 Bangkok, 10501 Thailand
tel: +84-4 942-1495 (ext 135) fax: +84-4 942-2267
http://www.undp.org.vn and http://www.un.org.vn
home address: Apartment 504-505, Block A4 Giang Vo
[opposite UN Int. School] tel: +84-4 846-1751
-------------------------------------------------
UNDP is the UN's global development network

To facilitate co-ordination regarding the introduction of OSS SW in Vietnam

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