Subject: TCVN 5773:1993 (NSCII) -- Vietnamese No>m national standard

From: [email-masked] (Ngo Thanh Nhan)
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 1994 15:56:33 -0500

NYU Linguistic String Project -- Thu Jan 27 15:56:17 EST 1994

For your information.

-- Ngo Thanh Nhan
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###### #### ##  ## ##  ##  TECHNICAL COMMITTEE ON INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
  ##  ##    ## ##  ### ##                   (TCVN/TC1)
  ##  ##    ###    ## ###    Viet Nam General Dept for Standardization,
  ##   #### ##     ##  ##          Metrology and Quality Control
=========================  ---------------------------------------------
T  E  C  H  N  I  C  A  L      70, Tran Hung Dao -- Ha Noi, Viet Nam
C  O  M  M  I  T  T  E  E      Tel: +84 4 266220 - Fax: +84 4 267418

                           PRESS RELEASE

Subject: TCVN 5773:1993 (NSCII) -- Vietnamese No>m national standard

Vietnam has adopted the first 16-bit character encoding standard for
computing, called "No>m Standard Code for Information Interchange"
(NSCII).  This move took place seven months after the adoption of the
8-bit VSCII character encoding ("Vietnamese Standard Code for
Information Interchange" -- Vietnam's first national standard for
computing), and only four months after the announcement of Vietnam's
ambitious information technology strategy for the 1990's.

No>m has been the writing system, based on ideographic (Chinese)
characters, in use since the tenth century for the spoken
Vietnamese language.  VSCII, formally set out in the document
TCVN 5712:1993, is the character encoding standard for quo>'c
ngu*~ -- the dominant, alternative Latin-based writing system
since the 1920's.

Mr Le Quy An, Vice Minister of Science, Technology and Environment,
signed the document adopting the national standard "TCVN 5773:1993
(NSCII)" in Hanoi on December 31, 1993.

By adopting and extending the current repertoire of ideographic
characters found in the emerging ISO 10646/Unicode international
standard for multilingual computing, TCVN 5773:1993 (NSCII) defines the
first standard code table which contains the most essential No>m proper
characters -- those ideographic characters that can only be found in
use in Vietnam. Vietnam intends to include No>m characters in
future revisions of the ISO 10646/Unicode standard, and is
currently working with China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong
and the United States in this endeavor under ISO auspices.

Originally proposed for discussion in May 1992, NSCII was formally
approved through a national ballot and technical review conference held
in Hanoi in November 1993.  A version of the NSCII code table in the
form of a Macintosh HyperCard Stack is currently available by
"Anonymous FTP" from the archives of the Unicode Consortium (in
unicode.org:/pub/Mapping_Tables/EastAsia_maps).

TCVN is the Vietnamese acronym for Vietnam's national standards
organization -- Viet Nam General Department for Standardization,
Metrology and Quality Control -- a member of the International
Organisation for Standardization (ISO). TCVN/TC1 is its Technical
Committee on Information Technology, which is directly responsible for
the compilation of NSCII. TCVN/TC1 has expressed its gratitude for
comments and suggestions which it received from inside and outside of
Vietnam.  The NSCII code table was refined following these
suggestions and comments.

The TCVN/TC1 committee may be contacted at 70, Tran Hung Dao, Ha Noi,
Viet Nam. Tel: +84 4 266220, Fax: +84 4 267418.

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