Subject: Ming Bu Zheng, Yan Bu Shun

From: HU Bo <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1993 10:16:19 +0200

Without a correct definition of terms, one can not talk fluently.
                                                - Confucius
C{2;U}#,QT2;K3
                                                #- ?WWS

I read every day on this net many terms, without a correct definition.
In following I am trying to list some definitions I found.
It is the second version and for discussion.

1) Pinyin       full pinyin according PR China's State Department.
2) ShuangPin    a two (sometimes also a three) key transscript of (1).
3) ShuangYin    based on (1) or (2), possible to input two syllable words.
4) LianXiang    based on (1), and after each CHARACTER input, a menu shows
                CHARACTERS which may be a second one in a WORD together
                with the first one.
5) Cizu         similar to (3) but also useable for two and more syllable words.
6) Zhengju      based on (5) but some more intelligence is implemented for
                A) finding word borders, or/and B) finding the correct one
                (or more) syllable word form a list of homophone words using
                some correlation functions between words.
7) Tone         forced tone input.
8) Optional T.  optional tone input.
9) Bopomofo     Its official name is "Guoyu Zhuyin Fuhao". Its computer
                related implementation is done using redefinition of A-Z
                and 0-9 (and something else) to Bo, Po
                Mo, Fo, etc. Often combind with (7)
10) Graphical   Encoding of characters using their GRAPHICAL structures like
                strokes, radicals and so on.
11) Radical     ONE possiblity to implement (10) using radical information.
                Typical: 216 radical.
12) Input macro An input "method" which does not cover all characters of the
                code system for which the input method is designed.
13) Word        Ci in Chinese
14) System      A meaningless word in context of description of a software
                package, since everything is named a system by its author
                nowadays.
15) C-DOS-Extension Software package enabling Chinese IO on the level of DOS.
                VRAM direct access must be supported. Often named as xx-DOS
                or alike.
16) No-use      (15) without support of VRAM direct access.
17) C-Editor    Editor supporting Chinese
18) C-WordProcessor (17) with at least some basic WP functions like character,
                paragraph and page formatting.

Generally, there are several very problematic confusions:
        (12) with "input method"
        (11) with (10)
        (3), (4), (5)
        (5) with (6)
        (7) with (8)
        (1) with (9)
        (13) with "character"
        (14) with everything meaningfull
        (15) with (16), (17), (18)
        (17) with (18)
To reduce misunderstanding and information redundance in our discussion, we
should release an "official" definition of the terms we often use on this
network.

Regards,

Bo