Subject: Chinese in the UNICODE

From: Wang Jianxiong <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 2 Aug 1993 11:37:13 EST

Dear Netters:

      I think this is a very important topic.
      A few weeks ago, I learned from the electronical magasine that we would
have to even translate Chinese to Chinese due to the non-correlated
code setting of the original Chinese characters used in Taiwan, HongKong &
overseas and the simplified Chinese characters used in mainland China in
the future UNICODE code.
      I think this would be a misfortune not only for Chinese people but also
for everyone in the world.
      Can we, all Chinese computing lovers in the world, do anything good
for the great culture's future in a correct direction?
      My strong point is: we should at least let Chinese to not be translated
in the future code setting, UNICODE for example.
      I think the new Chinese code should be based on the original Chinese
characters. We have at least two big reasons for this:
      1) Original Chinese characters have never been eliminated even in
mainland China although many of them have been simplified. Original
characters are still 'legal' in mainland China. People still use it in
mainland China, don't mention Taiwan, HongKong & overseas.
      2) Original Chinese characters contain every thing we may need such as
'the art of war' and anything else.
      Let's have a look on the 'new Chinese code' setting. This is a large
sheet that contains all original Chinese characters we might need.
On the first subsheet we have only a few hundreds of simplified characters
each of them sits in the same 'hole' correspond to the original one. The
rest 'holes' are empty. The second subsheet would be the 'Kanji' set. It
also contains only 'simplified' characters. The third subsheet would be
the Korean Chinese character set. It contains also only 'simplified'
characters.
      For all simplified Chinese, KanJi and Korean Chinese, they use the
same code as the original Chinese code setting for those characters not
been 'simplified' or 'modified' original Chinese characters.
      I think mainland China simplified only a few hundreds characters and
we use as many characters as in the original character set. The Japanese
expert can tell us how many Chinese characters Japanese use and how many have
been simplified. Also for Korean Chinese. I bilieve that every simplified set
would be only a few hundreds.
      In this way, we could:
      1) save a lot of space for other languages and function codes. We may
even put a sort of 'PostScript' code and drawing code in the UNICODE. Using
different code for thousands of repeated characters for the same language
and let them to be translated due to only a few hundreds of simplified
characters is stupid and it's a crime!!!!!
      2) need not any translation between the original Chinese text and
simplified Chinese text or even between Janpanese (or Korea) and Chinese
for the 'Chinese' part.
      Let's talk to the polititians and make the code work for the human
being, not only for polititians who will not really use it.
      What's your opinion?

Jian-xiong Wang

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
GB codes are limited to mostly frequently used words.  Using GB codes seems
to be sufficient for most writtings.  Unfortunately, classic Chinese works
contain a lot of obscure words.  For example, when I read the computer version
of Art of War, I found seven words that are not in the GB codes.

I would like to know if there is an widely accepted way to represent obscure
words in computing.  Assume Chinese characters are composed of a limited
number of parts, then, it's possible to provide a coding system for these
parts, and another coding system designating how these parts are configured.
Being an outsider to the inner working of computers, I have no idea if it is
feasible to pursue this direction.  But am interested in finding ways to
overcome this problem.

Would appreciate very much information regarding this topic.

Thanks in advance.