Subject: <<CHINPUT>>

From: John Delacour <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1993 00:29:00 GMT0BST-1

* * * * * * *     C H I N P U T     * * * * * * *

Without any thought of computers in mind I devised, some 20 years ago
a system of representing any chinese syllable with two latin
characters.  I saw this as the natural way of writing Chinese in the
most economical fashion for native Chinese, who always graduate to
the traditional writing system that is imperative for the proper
representation of the language.

Now that the personal computer is a powerful tool within the reach of
anyone in the west that does not prefer to waste his money on more
expensive and less useful things and is also bound soon to become an
everyday object in Chinese life even on the mainland, the idea that I
had originally conceived in order to save ink can now be used to
reduce RSI (repetitive strain injury!).

I do not make any great claim to originality in my "Chinput", since
the nature of the Chinese language almost demands such a phonetic
representation.  "Chinput" is in effect a direct leap from the
earliest phonetic representation.

Now I don't want to "wield my axe outside Master Han's front door" or
even "teach my grandmother to such eggs", so those of you who are
well-versed in these matters will excuse me if I give a brief
introduction.  Qing yuanliang ba!

I am talking of Mandarin, though the same principles apply for all
the Han dialects.  Words written in capitals are PINYIN.  Every
Chinese character is pronounced as a monosyllable and that
monosyllable comprises an "initial" sound and a "final" sound.  There
is a finite number of initials and of finals and they may only be
combined in certain configurations.  This is not so in English.  In
English it would be possible to create <infinity minus a few>
monosyllables but in Chinese, although there is a syllable TUAN and a
syllable SHUANG, there is no syllable TUANG.  This does not mean that
TUANG would be unpronounceable for a Chinese, but simply that it
would not be allowed under the laws of the language.  This phenomenon
is extremely special but it is a fact and that is what we are working
with:- facts!  Before I leave this section I will simply list a
number of syllables that _could_ exist in Chinese but don't : - TUA;
SHONG, CHEI, PUN, MUANG, LIONG, DIANG etc.

Now if we neglect tones, there are fewer than 400 monosyllables in
Chinese.  The meaning of the spoken word is made clear by 1) the four
tones, 2) by combination (cizu) and 3) by context.

The old method of indicating the pronunciation of a ZI4 was to use
two familiar ZI4 and to cut (QIE) each of them in half, throwing away
the second half of the first ZI4 and the first half of the second ZI4
and joining the remainder togeth to give the sound of the new word.
For example we find the word HUA (flower) in the Kangxi dictionary
and the pronunciation is given as H-U:G-UA (exhale:gourd).
We throw away the middle and get the pronunciation.  This system of
indicatiing the pronunciation is still current in many areas of
China.

All the other phonetic transcriptions of Chinese have ignored the
essential duality of the Chinese monosyllable.  Even the National
Phonetic Alphabet added unnecessary "medials".  I will explain what I
mean by this:-  the word XIA2 is written thus in PINYIN; in the Wade
transcription it is <hsia@>, in the Yale transcription <sya2>, in
Zhuyin <.T|Y>, <shya> and in Kangxi <H-e:jIA> (what:add).  To sum
up:-

                   * * * SUNSET * * *

KANGXI                     H  [e:j]  IA  (what:add)  {wrong tone
often!}
WADE-GILES                 hsia2
YALE                       sya2
Bopomofo                   .T|Y
Zhuyin                     shya
PInYIN                     xia2
*Chinput*                  xa        (or xa2   or   x)

So let's "get back to our sheep" as the French say and stop wielding
our axes and teaching our grandmothers <g>.

Only two characters are needed to identify a Chinese monosyllable and
two the 26 characters of the Latin alphabet are adequate to define
any Chinese monosyllable, provided that two values are assigned to
each character.

Now I hear all you Macintosh people and you blind people shouting,
"BIG DEAL, we already have Shuangpin !!"  Well, yes, the idea is just
the same except that I invented my method and somebody else invented
the other method.  The principle is the same but *  C H I N P U T  *
has a number of features that make it more usable.

Before I continue, let's have a look at the  *  C H I N P U T  *
"alphabet", or, if you like the aabbcc (ABIANCUN)

                   *  C H I N P U T  *

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

         a-a                    n-ei
         b-ian                  o-o
         c-un                   p-ang
         d-uan                  q-ue
         e-e                    r-ou
         f-an                   s-ai
         g-uang                 t-ao
         h-en                   u-u        (uu = WU)
         i-i                    v-ui       (vv = SHUI)
         j-ing                  w-uai      (ww = ZHUAI)
         k-ua                   x-iao
         l-in                   y-ong      (yy = CHONG)
         m-ie                   z-eng

         lia

         n, iong, ia, iang, ie, an, iong follow only j,q,x,i

         -uo > o
         iu

The characters as initials have mostly the values that they would
have in pinyin.  The exceptions are v-, w- and y.  V- does not exist
in pinyin and there is no v sound in Putonghua.  This letter can
therefore be used to replace one of the initials that requires two
letters in pinyin.  I have assigned the sound sh- to this letter.
Now there is nothing w and y can do as initials that cannot equally
well be done by u- and i- (incidentally these initials were used for
words of the first tone in the Gwoyeu Romatzyh system also) and they
can therefore be used for the consonants zh- and ch-.  So all the
initial consonants can now be represented by a single character.

Now for the letters as finals.  All words in putonghua end in a
vowel, -n or -ng.
In *  C H I N P U T  * characters with ascents are used for finals
ending in the -n sound, and those with descents for finals ending in
-ng, thus :-

-d-uan                 -g-uang
-f-an                  -j-ing
-h-en                  -p-ang
-k-ua                  -q-ue
-l-in                  -y-ong                       -z-eng

Unfortunately it is not possible to avoid the obvious exceptions, but
at least z is as often as not written with a descent in handwriting.

So much for the basics.  Anyone with a knowledge of pinyin would
already be able to write almost all Chinese syllables using Chinput,
but there are further economies that must be explained.

The initials j-, q- and x- can only be followed by the vowel sounds
-i or .  The -i- in the pinyin jian, qiang, xie is not necessary
since the sound is as it were incorporated in the initial consonant.
These words are written in Chinput as jf, qp and xe.  They could also
be written jb, qp and xm but a decision has to be made.  There is a
separate final -ian (-b) because there are the words ban, bian, tan,
tian, lan, lian etc.  The only two syllable that are neglected in
this regard are liang and niang.  These are therefore the first two
syllable for which an arbitrary Chinput is needed:-

liang   lg                  niang  ng

Similarly when j, q or x are followed by a final -u or -u-- the u is
pronounced .  The only casualty here is lan.  There is only one word
with this pronunciation and modern dictionaries do not recognize this
pronunciation and substitute lian.  I give here a few examples of
words that should make clear how this principle is applied:-

                  lan    lb                  ne    nq
                  juan    jd                  que    qq
                  xun     xc                  l     l

Words that in pinyin have the final -uo have -o as final in Chinput
since there is no possibility of ambiguity here; the initial dictates
whether the transitional -u- sound is present:-

                  bo         bo                  cuo    co
                  duo        do                  fo     fo
                  guo        go                  huo    ho

So much for the Chinputting of RdanciS (single syllable words).  Now,
since the primary aim of *  C H I N P U T  * is to provide an
economical method of inputting Chinese to a computer, it is
unnecessary to use any upper case characters; by the time the input
is converted to Hanzi it will not make any difference.  This leaves
the upper case characters free for other purposes.

Anyway, that will do for the moment.  I have a mush longer file on
the subject of course, but I thought I would write this much in order
to hear what you all have to say on the matter.

Here is a short extact from LAO3SHE4  (ltve)  to illustrate how
 *  C H I N P U T  * might work

                            (Chinput Text)

RirmoS wnge zi zs zidb vp ir vilsge buty d djii.  hsvi ba zidb fpxa,
rp zamh svbb tf ba..  ju uo kf, ta vrit -d v- iiwy xjts.  uomh widt,
ir xudo rh vhjj-goml -d, mnmn ii godu -d gfqj kf vi, er bu kz ry
rh.veip rh jaro v uhii zoja, tade zopj-wy bi hfwe qplm -d cijixj, ho
ltst, ho vpgf; ta lt kf bmrh bu vcif, er id vi daja dr svwe ta ziji
zr, hovi dv ziji d ztiu bu mf, er vpgf d zilb.  ffwi, irmo d rh bb b
weip, ta ji b huht jtma, kf bmrh dr bv dyxi, ie b gdijzilb, kf ziji
ru iiho btbn.  Ta v ir vi vi wy kfyu kext wi db, er jiqt xmyuls.

                            (PINYIN Text)

Youmo zheige zi zai zidian shang you shilaige butongde dingyi.
Haishi ba zidian fangxia, rang zamen bian tan ba.  Ju wo kan, ta
shouyao de shi yizhong xintai.  Women zhidao , you xuduo ren shi
shenjing-guomin de, meimei yi guo du de ganqing kan shi, er bu keng
rong ren.  Zheyang ren jiaruo shi wenyi zuojia, tade zuopin zhong bi
hanzhe qianglie de cijixing, huo laosao, huo shanggan; ta lao kan
bieren bu shunyan, er yuan shi dajia dou suizhe ta ziji zou, huoshi
dui ziji de zaoyu bu man, er shanggan de zilian.  Fanzhi, youmo de
ren bian bu zheyang, ta ji bu huhao jiao ma, kan bie ren bu shi
dongxi, ye bu gu ying zi lian. kan ziji ru yihuo bao bei.  Ta shi you
shi shi zhong kanchu kexiao zhi dian, er jiqiao de xiechulai

                      (VERY ROUGH English Text)

Look up the word humour in the dictionary and you will find a dozen
or so definitions, so letUs forget about the dictionary and talk
about it.  As I see it, itUs an attitude of mind.  We know that there
are a lot of neurotic people around who perceive things with an
exaggerrated sensibility and canUt get on with other people.  If such
a person is a creative writer, his works are bound be ridden with
bitter sarcasm or complaints or sentimentality;  he is constantly
looking down on people and wants everyone to march to his tune; he is
not content with his lot and feels sorry for himself.  But the man of
humour is not like this; he doesnUt spend his time bemoaning his lot
and railing at the world and looking down his nose at people and he
doesnUt have any illusions about himself or feel sorry for himself or
regard himself as GodUs gift to the world.  He  seeks out what is
humorous in things and writes ............

Here follows a brief description of "Shuangpin" for comparison

@@@@@@@@@@@@@  Appendix: ShuangPin (by courtesy of Edmund
Lai)@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

          ShuangPin uses two letters to represent a sound.  This
means if           with Cihui homonyms are under control then you can
use about 2           keystrokes per Chinese character even without
abbreviation, so it is           near optimal for input.  The
drawback is that you have to           learn to remember the position
of the keyboard so it is not for the           casual user.  It is
based on PinYin.  It is fairly popular in China           and is one
of the input method in CCDOS.  The consonant is identical
to PinYin except you use V for Zh, W for Ch and Y for Sh, the pseudo
         consonants W and Y normally used in PinYin are not used.

          For vowels, the mapping is:
          A                  a
          B                  ai
          C                  ao
          D                  an
          E                  e
          F                  ang
          G                  eng
          H                  ou
          I                  i
          J                  ie
          K                  ei
          L                  ong,iong
          M                  in
          N                  en
          O                  o,uo
          P                  ing
          Q                  ia,ua
          R                  ian
          S                  uan,uan:
          T                  un,un:
          U                  u
          V                  ui,ue:
          W                  iu
          X                  iang,uang
          Y                  u:, uai
          Z                  iao

          For those without consonants (including the pseudo ones
like Y           and W), you either use O as the first letter except
the following           use E

          EL                  Yong
          EO                  O
          EQ                  Ya
          ER                  Er
          ES                  Yuan
          ET                  Yun
          EV                  Yue
          EX                  Yang
          EY                  Yu

          All of these are my reconstruction, and there may be
mistakes.

          And the following are my own additions

          EE                  Eh
          EZ                  Yo
          EB                  Yai

                       ************************************

There are improvements to be made in *  C H I N P U T  *  and these I
will make all the more quickly if I get some response and
encouragement from the world outside, so please have a think and see
if this is not the simplest and most economical way of inputting
Chinese to the computer.
I will write more on this subject when time allows.

                   John