Subject: BIG-5/GB2312

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 1991 17:20:31 GMT

This week began with a very lively discussion on different coding
scheems. I got the impression that some arguments have been taken
to personal. I do not think that it will be we to influence what
code will be use in the (could I call them) CJK-countries.
The GB 2312 is the official standard in mainland China and is
suitable for the handling of modern texts and data. Of course
it's adapted to the local conditions in mainland China, i.e. it is
based on the simplified characters. So if I have to do with scholars,
and institutions from mainland China or even topics concerned
with modern China, the use of GB 2312 might be a proper choice. With
GB 2312 there is a one to one relation in code and character in
the written/printed material from mainland China.

The same holds true for Taiwan. BIG-5 is not only the quasi standard
code in Taiwan, but it is also a traditional character code. Thus those
writing and encoding traditional characters probably will use very
naturally the BIG-5 code, because it gives coding points for the
traditional character set. There is no one to one mapping possible
between the GB 2312 and the BIG-5 code, because of the "one to many"
between simplified and traditional characters.

[Some notes concerning further code tables beyond GB 2312, which someone
mentioned in a email:]
In mainland Chinese publications sometimes one comes across some hints,
that other coding plans than GB 2312 are already finished. But
whenever one asks for more then the mere confirmation of this fact, nobody
seems to have seen this coding scheems, not to speak of an available
public domain font. There are two follow up coding tables to GB 2312
(simplified) and altogether three alternate coding tables containing the
corresponding traditional characters.
  -----------------------------------------
  charcters   simplified        traditional
  -----------------------------------------
     6763         G0 (GB 2312)      G1
     7237         G2                G3
     7039         G4                G5
  -----------------------------------------
It is only to speculate: I think that these coding tables will never
be released. Mainland China is now very much engaged in pushing a
unified Han-code for alls the CJK-countries. G2 to G5 might just internally
be used for reference in deciding on the inclusion of characters in this
new universal code. It is very lucky that Mainland China, Taiwan, Japan
and Korea are working together in this very important field. In a few
years this universal code should be available (as ISO DIS 10646?). Very
important: this code should contain UNICODE, i.e. UNICODE will be a
(very important) subset of ISO 10646.

[let me answer somthing to Huang Yolin's ideas:] I do not think that the
simplified characters should or could be regarded as a style or fontface.
It has nothing to do with politics (though both sides used to demonstrate
the superiority of the political system by pointing to their way of
handling the simplified/traditional issue), but it is a fact, that in
mainland China the simplified characters are not only an official standard,
but are well accepted among the population. The simplified characters
cannot be considered writing variants of the traditional characters,
just because there is no one to one relation between the two character sets.

On the same reason I also would not say that the GB-code is for beginners,
and the BIG-5 code is for the learned. Whenever you use traditional
characters one should/could use BIG-5. Thus people in Taiwan use BIG-5
and People in mainland China doing computer aided research in classical
fields will also (and actually do) use BIG-5 as I demonstrated in a
earlier email on full text systems.

The day is closing here in Bremen and the sky is already dark
Urs Widmer

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Urs Widmer            Tel.:  (0049)421-218-3188      CHINESISCH UND COMPUTER
PC-Labor, MZH         email: <[email-masked]>    Journal for Computing
Universitaet Bremen   FAX:   (0049)421-218-2720       in Oriental Languages
2800 Bremen 33                                             (in German)
Germany
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