The first part of the standard 24614-1:2010 describes the basic concepts and general principles of word segmentation. The standard offers language-independent requirements, recommendations and guidance for segmentation of the written texts into word segmentation units (WSU) for monolingual and multilingual information processing. It describes the basic framework for word segmentation as well. All substantial characteristics, principles, components and processes of word segmentation are described accurately and in detail in this part of the standard.