TS EN 13710

TS EN 13710 is the European ordering rules standard for determining how character strings in the Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Georgian and Armenian scripts are ordered. It provides a common approach for arranging multilingual records, indexes and databases where items from different European writing systems must be compared and presented consistently.

Why multilingual ordering matters

In general technical terms, ordering rules define the sequence in which two strings are placed relative to one another. That matters when a single list contains names, titles or data entries written in more than one script, because local alphabetic traditions alone may not give a predictable cross-language order. This standard uses the Modern European Scripts (MES) collection from ISO/IEC 10646:2003 as its character basis, including relevant subsets of that collection.

What the standard is intended to do

• It specifies the order between two character strings composed of characters from the Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Georgian and Armenian scripts.
• It is intended for data lists in more than one European language and for use with multicultural audiences.
• It complements national standards or local practices rather than replacing them in every context.
• Its focus is ordering behaviour, not character coding itself.