Recent from talks
Chinese character information technology
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Chinese character information technology
Chinese character information technology, shortly Chinese character IT, is the information technology for computer processing of Chinese characters. While the English writing system uses a few dozen different characters, Chinese language needs a much larger character set. There are over ten thousand characters in the Xinhua Dictionary. In the Unicode multilingual character set of 149,813 characters, 98,682 (about two-thirds) are Chinese. That means computer processing of Chinese characters is the toughest among other languages.
Chinese faces special issues compared to other languages, including the technology of computer input, internal encoding and output of Chinese characters.
Computer input of Chinese characters is by no means as easy as English. English is written with 26 letters and a handful of other characters, and each character is assigned to a key on the keyboard. Chinese can be input in a similar way. However that would involve a huge keyboard with at least thousands of keys. Searching for a character on the keyboard would be a daunting job.
People did try to 'shrink' the Chinese keyboard by putting multiple characters on one key. That turned the original one-step input procedure into two steps for the writer:
The resulting keyboard still remained clumsy, because if you put more characters on one key, the key becomes bigger to make the characters recognizable, and selecting a character from a large group is difficult. Additionally, it is not easy to group the characters evenly in a reasonable and easy-to-learn way. Another drawback of a Chinese keyboard for direct whole character input is its inconsistency with English input.
An alternative way is to encode each Chinese character in English characters, enabling Chinese input on an English keyboard. As a matter of fact, this method has become predominant for Chinese computer input. The software of an encoding input method includes a character-code table (码表; 碼表; mǎbiǎo). When an ASCII input code is typed on the English keyboard, the software will search for matching Chinese characters in the table. If there are multiple characters sharing the same code, they will be presented to the user for selection. To make the input method easy to learn, encoding must be based on distinctive features in forms, sounds or meanings of Chinese characters. Because the meanings of characters tend to be more abstract and complicated, input encoding is normally based on the sound or form.
Sound-based encoding is normally based on an existing Latin character scheme for Chinese phonetics, such as pinyin for Putonghua (Mandarin), and Jyutping for Cantonese. The input code of a Chinese character is its pinyin letter string followed by an optional number representing the tone. For example, the Putonghua pinyin input code of 香港 (Hong Kong) is xianggang or xiang1gang3, and the Cantonese Jyutping code is hoenggong or hoeng1gong2, all of which can be easily input via an English keyboard. In Putonghua pinyin, there are two letters not appearing on the English keyboard: ê and ü. According to the national standard, ê should be represented by 'ea', and ü by 'v' in the pinyin input code. In some Chinese input software ê is also represented as 'e^', and ü as 'u:' or 'uu'. Popular sound-based input methods in China include Microsoft Pinyin, Sogou Pinyin, Google Pinyin and Jyutping on the mainland and Hong Kong, and bopomofo in Taiwan.
There are a number of advantages for sound-based encoding:
Hub AI
Chinese character information technology AI simulator
(@Chinese character information technology_simulator)
Chinese character information technology
Chinese character information technology, shortly Chinese character IT, is the information technology for computer processing of Chinese characters. While the English writing system uses a few dozen different characters, Chinese language needs a much larger character set. There are over ten thousand characters in the Xinhua Dictionary. In the Unicode multilingual character set of 149,813 characters, 98,682 (about two-thirds) are Chinese. That means computer processing of Chinese characters is the toughest among other languages.
Chinese faces special issues compared to other languages, including the technology of computer input, internal encoding and output of Chinese characters.
Computer input of Chinese characters is by no means as easy as English. English is written with 26 letters and a handful of other characters, and each character is assigned to a key on the keyboard. Chinese can be input in a similar way. However that would involve a huge keyboard with at least thousands of keys. Searching for a character on the keyboard would be a daunting job.
People did try to 'shrink' the Chinese keyboard by putting multiple characters on one key. That turned the original one-step input procedure into two steps for the writer:
The resulting keyboard still remained clumsy, because if you put more characters on one key, the key becomes bigger to make the characters recognizable, and selecting a character from a large group is difficult. Additionally, it is not easy to group the characters evenly in a reasonable and easy-to-learn way. Another drawback of a Chinese keyboard for direct whole character input is its inconsistency with English input.
An alternative way is to encode each Chinese character in English characters, enabling Chinese input on an English keyboard. As a matter of fact, this method has become predominant for Chinese computer input. The software of an encoding input method includes a character-code table (码表; 碼表; mǎbiǎo). When an ASCII input code is typed on the English keyboard, the software will search for matching Chinese characters in the table. If there are multiple characters sharing the same code, they will be presented to the user for selection. To make the input method easy to learn, encoding must be based on distinctive features in forms, sounds or meanings of Chinese characters. Because the meanings of characters tend to be more abstract and complicated, input encoding is normally based on the sound or form.
Sound-based encoding is normally based on an existing Latin character scheme for Chinese phonetics, such as pinyin for Putonghua (Mandarin), and Jyutping for Cantonese. The input code of a Chinese character is its pinyin letter string followed by an optional number representing the tone. For example, the Putonghua pinyin input code of 香港 (Hong Kong) is xianggang or xiang1gang3, and the Cantonese Jyutping code is hoenggong or hoeng1gong2, all of which can be easily input via an English keyboard. In Putonghua pinyin, there are two letters not appearing on the English keyboard: ê and ü. According to the national standard, ê should be represented by 'ea', and ü by 'v' in the pinyin input code. In some Chinese input software ê is also represented as 'e^', and ü as 'u:' or 'uu'. Popular sound-based input methods in China include Microsoft Pinyin, Sogou Pinyin, Google Pinyin and Jyutping on the mainland and Hong Kong, and bopomofo in Taiwan.
There are a number of advantages for sound-based encoding: