CR 14400:2001

European ordering rules - Ordering for Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Georgian and Armenian scripts CR 14400:2001

Scope

This CEN report specifies the sequence to be established by alphabetical ordering of multilingual data composed of characters comprised in the Multilingual European Subset Number 3 or subsets thereof. This collection is defined in CWA 13783.
NOTE The Multilingual European Subset Number 3 is usually termed MES-3. A predecessor was known as the Extended European Subset (EES). Cf. ENV 1973:1995. MES-3 covers the Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Armenian, and Georgian letters needed in European data interchange as well as symbols which are needed in Europe. MES-3 comes in two versions: MES-3A is an open collection whereas the fixed collection MES-3B is a snapshot of MES-3A against the repertoire of ISO/IEC 10646-1:1993 with amendments 1 to 31. A CEN workshop agreement on the Multilingual European Subsets of ISO/IEC 10646 has been published as CEN ISSS CWA 13873.
The ordering rules given here are only intended for data in more than one European language. They are not meant to influence, let alone replace existing national standards or practices.
The main part of this CEN report specifies letter-by-letter ordering of character strings. Informative Annex A presents equivalent information in a more readily accessible way. Informative Annex B deals with word-by-word ordering as a special form of ordering with multiple keys. Informative Annex C explains the use of further ordering criteria. Informative Annex D presents a widely used alternative to the main part, namely the amalgamation of several scripts in one index via implicit transliteration. Informative Annex F, finally, presents the information inherent in section 6 of the body of this CEN report in a formally equivalent, though condensed, form.
Following the practice of ISO/IEC 14651 characters are referenced as UXXXX where X stands for any hexadecimal digit and refers to the value of that character in ISO/IEC 10646-1:2000.This convention is used throughout this CEN report.