Re: [PLUG] UTF-8, Second Opinion

[sean finney <seanius@seanius.net>]

slightly ot of the original message, but eh...

On Wed, Mar 31, 2004 at 07:29:24PM -0500, Paul wrote:
> >Unicode keeps getting touted as the way to fix all sorts of
> >character set differences, but it's a false win. It only gets you
> >text, not various other behaviors (think Japanese keyboards; they've
> >got three modes, none of which is "Kanji" exactly). Locales are
> >still the right way to do this, Unicode is just extra fluff.

unicode handle the encoding of the text appropriately, but the burden
is still on the application to support the proper methods for displaying
and inputting the characters.  for example, no matter what locale you're
using, you won't be able to view multicharacter text (such as
japenese JIS/SJIS encoding) in rxvt because it's only desigend to handle
8-bit characters.

> I would guess that the first two modes are Hiragana and Katakana.  I 
> don't know what the third would be.  In my study of the Japanese 
> language I've used Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji (very few), and Romaji.  
> Hiragana is the main "alphabet."  Katakana is similar to Hiragana, but 
> it is used to represent foreign words.  Kanji, all those characters 
> could never fit on a keyboard!  Romaji is simply Japanese written in 
> English characters.

iirc, the three input modes are hiragana, katakana, and romaji.  on a
japanese keyboard there's a key for switching between the various modes.
i believe the possible kanji are derived from the sequence of hiragana
characters.

on my qwerty keyboard, i use a combination of locales + x input modifiers
+ non-8-bit terminals + kinput/canna to simulate having such a keyboard.
i type the 1-3 character syllables and the appropriate
hiragana/katakana/kanji/romaji text is output.

> If I type the *sound* of a Kanji, I am given a selection of Kanji from 
> which to choose.  Maybe that's the third mode?  Maybe it's romaji mode?  
> It could be something totally different.  I'll have to ask.  I have 
> never even seen a Japanese keyboard.

i've got a mebius laptop--if you're interested i can send you a pic off
list.


	sean

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