Re: Yet another Unihan Q

From: Martin J. Duerst (mduerst@ifi.unizh.ch)
Date: Wed Jun 11 1997 - 10:30:47 EDT


On Wed, 11 Jun 1997, Adrian Havill wrote:

> If it's in 221, don't you think it should be in TUS 2.0 as well? (^_^)
> I'm IN Japan and I have a hard time getting JIS documents (my company
> gets the "JIS Handbooks," but its summary of 221 is useless for doing
> any really work)... I can order a copy of TUS 2.0 and have it at my door
> faster than I can order a JIS doc from the bookstore (one of the five
> largest in Japan) two subway stops away... Haven't compared the speed of
> obtaining ISO docs versus JIS docs yet. ;)

Well, you have to get Japanese documents the Japanese way. If you
go to their office and pay in cash, you get it quite quickly.
But I wouldn't mind more explanations about Han unification to
be in Unicode 2.0. And if you are interested in the issue of variants,
you should also get the new version of JIS 208, which has ample
discussion about it.

> > Even for school, there is more variance allowed than one usually
> > thinks. I have a handbook for Japanese school teachers that has
> > a page for each character, from first to sixth grade, and it's
> > amazing how many variants it lists as being acceptable.
>
> The only official guide I know of (for Japanese-- don't know about other
> languages) for writing order and variants is $@I.=g;XF3$N<j$S$-(J (Hitsujun
> Shidou No Tebiki), published by $@J8It>J(J (Monbushou; Japanese Ministry of
> Education) in 1958. Note that this document concerns plain $@\4=q(J (Kaisho;
> square style) Han characters, not calligraphy.
>
> In its "writing variations" section, it lists exactly eight examples for
> recognized stroke order variations, and gives the "preferred" writing
> order for all of them.

There are much more documents on this, from various government agencies,
and the government itself. I don't have a list at hand.

Stroke order variations are not that much
an issue, in particular at school (I have a booklet at home for
everyday use, and as far as I remember, it has more than just 8
variants). Other variations are much more frequent, and more visible
in writing and in particular in print. These are things such as
whether two strokes tuch or not, whether a stroke is stopped
(tome), bent (hane), or faded out (harai) at the end, whether
it's a dot or a stroke, and so on.

And these are just the variantions in school, not in daily life.

Regards, Martin.



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