From: jenkinsj@blowfish.taligent.com (John H. Jenkins)
Subject: Re: Language tagging
Followup-To: comp.std.internat
Organization: Taligent, Inc.
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 17:24:18 GMT

In article <1iav6tINNee2@life.ai.mit.edu>, glenn@wheat-chex.ai.mit.edu
(Glenn A. Adams) wrote:
> 
> In article <2609@titccy.cc.titech.ac.jp>
mohta@necom830.cc.titech.ac.jp (Masataka Ohta) writes:
> >If I throw away a short e-mail message from Japan to Japanese
> >friend living in China, how can my friend read the text with
> >the appropriately shaped character?
> 
> Ohta-san,
> 
> Could you be more specific about this claim that [...]
> a Japanese reader cannot read a
> Unicode encoded Japanese text which is displayed with a Chinese
> Unihan font versus a Japanese Unihan font.
> 
> I would be very interested to see any kind of hard data (other than
> your opinion) that would substantiate this claim.  [...]
> 
> I should add that any data on this topic should be keyed to the
> notion of legibility (i.e., readability) and not aesthetic judgment.
> I would contend -- also with hard data to back up my claim -- that
> you are incorrect in your assertion, and that, indeed, Japanese
> readers *can* read Unicode encoded Japanese text displayed with
> a Chinese Unihan font.
> 

Looking at the question closely, however, I'm not sure that it's an
issue of legibility so much as an issue of representability.  For
example, suppose I have a plain [Unicode] text of a Japanese commentary
on the Confucian classics.  Which parts should I display using a
"Japanese" font and which using a "Chinese" font?

The answer is:  You have to go through by hand and fix it.  (*blech*)

Next scenario, however:  I download the King James Bible (say) from an
ftp site in plaintext form.  The KJV uses italics extensively with a
specific semantic.  Which parts should I display using italics?

The answer:  You have to go through by hand and fix it.  (*blech*)

I want to re-emphasize your fundamental point:  Unicode (and now, by
extension, 10646) was *not* designed to maintain all the formatting
information needed for text documents, any more than ASCII or 8859-x.  

>From my understanding of ISO procedures, in fact, it would have been
impossible to design 10646 in such a fashion as to solve all the
potential formatting problems (although Ohta-san's Chinese/Japanese
dichotomy could have been maintained).

I am given to understand, in fact, that it is common in Japan for
printers to use Japanese fonts when printing Chinese texts.  This is
considered "improper," but it is done and does not seem to impact
legibility.  

The CJK-JRG, which designed the unified Han set used by Unicode and
10646, is anxious to provide users the information necessary to display
CJK text using the appropriate glyphs for a particular country.  The CJK
section of 10646, when printed, will be using a "four-glyph" format,
showing the typical (or, in some cases, normative) appearance of a
particular character in each of mainland China, Taiwan, Japan, and
Korea.  They will, furthermore, be producing a document later this year
which will outline the systematic differences between the way characters
are written the various CJK countries.  

While the CJK-JRG is hardly a neutral group on this issue, there has
never been any sentiment expressed that I've heard to the effect that
two glyphs should be separated simply on the basis that one is written
in a Japanese way and one Chinese.  Just the opposite, in fact.  There
is tacit agreement that higher-level protocols will be needed to
maintain that kind of distinction.  


----
John H. Jenkins
John_Jenkins@taligent.com

Newsgroups: comp.std.internat