Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 14:12:47 -0700 (PDT) From: Gary Kline <kline@tao.thought.org> To: itojun@iijlab.net (Jun-ichiro itojun Itoh) Cc: easmith@beatrice.rutgers.edu, frankch@waru.life.nthu.edu.tw, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: internationalization Message-ID: <199806132112.OAA20249@tao.thought.org> In-Reply-To: <1623.897632922@coconut.itojun.org> from Jun-ichiro itojun Itoh at "Jun 12, 98 03:28:42 pm"
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According to Jun-ichiro itojun Itoh: > this thread is becoming not very suitable for "hackers" > so this is my last comment ;-) > [[[ ... ]]] (( probably should move at least this issue to -chat if anyone cares to continue it... )) > > Wow, this is the point. Phonetic expression (and sound itself) > has ambiguity in Japanese/Chinese/Korean language. If you hear > some sound, you can interpret that in several ways. We resolve > the ambiguity by context in spoken Japanese, and by Kanji letters > in written Japanese. > > For example, Japanese sound, "Hashi", can be translated into > both "bridge" and "chopsticks". There's slight difference > in sound (intonation) which makes those sound distinct. > Also, Japanese sound "Saru" can be translated to "monkey (noun)" and > "leaving from somewhere (verb)". In this case there's no > difference in sound. We make a distinction by context > for spoken Japansese, and by Kanji letters in written Japanese. > > Therefore, if we write "saru" in Kana (phonetic letter), > we cannot figure out what these letters mean. This makes it > really hard for us to read Kana-only teletype, which were > used about 20 years ago. > > itojun > The issues here are well presented and well-taken. They are analogous to the many homologues in English that not infrequently cause some confusion even in context. Words like "to," "two," and "too." "Blew" and "blue." I didn't realize this until now, and see a solution in a diacritical with the Kana. A contrived example would be "hashi'" == "bridge" and "hashi`" == "chopsticks". I think it is almost certain sometime in the next century that some sort of alphabet will replace the ideogram. I see China leading the way on this. When//if this happens, the 8- or 16- (or 32-bit) character set issue will become moot; or at least muted. For the present, when your runelocale library can accept both Unicode and ISO_2022-* that seems altogether workable. gary > -- Gary D. Kline kline@tao.thought.org Public service uNix To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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