From owner-freebsd-hackers Sat Jun 13 14:14:14 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id OAA09563 for freebsd-hackers-outgoing; Sat, 13 Jun 1998 14:14:14 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from gershwin.tera.com (gershwin.tera.com [207.224.230.28]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id OAA09420 for ; Sat, 13 Jun 1998 14:13:32 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from kline@tao.thought.org) Received: from tao.thought.org (tao.tera.com [207.108.223.55]) by gershwin.tera.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id OAA22785; Sat, 13 Jun 1998 14:13:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from kline@localhost) by tao.thought.org (8.8.8/8.7.3) id OAA20249; Sat, 13 Jun 1998 14:12:47 -0700 (PDT) From: Gary Kline Message-Id: <199806132112.OAA20249@tao.thought.org> Subject: Re: internationalization In-Reply-To: <1623.897632922@coconut.itojun.org> from Jun-ichiro itojun Itoh at "Jun 12, 98 03:28:42 pm" To: itojun@iijlab.net (Jun-ichiro itojun Itoh) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 14:12:47 -0700 (PDT) Cc: easmith@beatrice.rutgers.edu, frankch@waru.life.nthu.edu.tw, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Organization: <> thought.org: public access uNix in service... <> X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL32 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG 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