What are the new variables on the RHEL 6 kernel command line?

Solution Verified - Updated -

Issue

There are some new arguments in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 kernel command line.  For example:

kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.32-19.el6.x86_64 ro root=/dev/mapper/vg_ivalk2-lv_root rd_LVM_LV=vg_ivalk2/lv_root rd_NO_LUKS rd_NO_MD rd_NO_DM LANG=C SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16 KEYBOARDTYPE=pc KEYTABLE=us console=ttyS1,115200

What is the significance of these new bits?  Are the rd_* entries just to identify the root device?  Why do we need LANG, KEYBOARDTYPE, KEYTABLE and SYSFONT in the kernel command line rather than in /etc/sysconfig where I'd expect it to be?

Environment

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6

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