Briefly,
Sorry the goal was not clear. The goal is multiple languages, with at least
one language per script. There are already multiple languages for Hebrew and
Arabic scripts, for example.
ユニコード "yunikoodo" is the closest transcription for Japanese. You would not
use Hiragana for foreign words.
If I can get Mongolian, the layout can be modified.
Mark
----- Original Message -----
From: "Thomas Chan" <thomas@atlas.datexx.com>
To: "Unicode List" <unicode@unicode.org>
Sent: Friday, January 12, 2001 08:01
Subject: Re: Transcriptions of "Unicode": Still Missing scripts
> On Thu, 11 Jan 2001, Mark Davis wrote:
>
> > By the way, I am still missing the following. If anyone can supply them,
I'd
> > appreciate it.
> >
> > [BOPOMOFO]
> [snip]
> >[MONGOLIAN]
> [snip]
> > See http://www.macchiato.com/unicode/Unicode_transcriptions.html for
> > details.
>
> It's still not very clear to me what this is supposed to be a list of.
> The title says "Transcriptions of Unicode", and a note at the bottom says
> "For non-Latin scripts the goal is to match the English pronunciation --
> not spelling."
>
> Some of the entries (leftmost column of the table) are names of languages,
> while others are names of scripts. e.g., "Russian" and "Japanese" are
> names of languages, with examples given in Cyrillic and Katakana,
> respectively. For some scripts, there is basically only one language that
> uses it, such as Katakana (used by Japanese) or Hangul (used by Korean),
> while other scripts are used by many languages. It this supposed to
> suggest that Russian is the representative language to give a Cyrillic
> example in, and say, not Mongolian?
>
> In some cases, it seems the example is not necessarily a transcription of
> the English pronunciation, but a translation into another language,
> most likely a loanword, with attendant sound changes. e.g., Japanese
> "yunikoodo". I notice the lack of a request for an example using the
> Hiragana script (which is also used by Japanese), which suggests that the
> Japanese example is not a transcription of the English pronunciation into
> Katakana, but a Japanese word (albeit a loanword). Otherwise, it would be
> possible to provide a Hiragana example, however nonsenical or non-existant
> it may be in reality. There is also the particular case of the Chinese
> entries, written in CJK "ideographs", which *are* translations using the
> calque strategy.
>
> It seems to me that this list is intended to showcase a variety of ways to
> write "Unicode", be they transcriptions, transliterations, or
> translations--whatever maximizes the number of scripts that one can show
> off, apparently.
>
> This raises some questions of what an example showcasing the Bopomofo
> script should look like. Basically, it is used only for Chinese,
> primarily Mandarin (zh-guoyu). It is also primarily an auxiliary script
> for ruby annotation of Chinese text written in CJK "ideographs", although
> it may stand alone. So, if it is a transcription of English
> pronunciation, then it will have to go through the language filter of
> Mandarin Chinese, and this form may or may not be attested in
> reality--perhaps as a "best-fit" colloquial attempt to say a foreign
> (English) word. And this version would have the script standing alone.
>
> Alternatively, it could be a transcription according to Mandarin Chinese
> pronunication of the already existing Chinese translations written in CJK
> "ideographs". In this case, it could either stand alone, or be attached
> as ruby annotation to the CJK "ideograph" version (in Chinese).
> Implemenation-wise, it would be problematic seeing the Bopomofo at the
> size it would be in for ruby annotation of text in a 96x24 bitmap (as
> requested on the page. Also, Bopomofo does have an inclination to be used
> with Chinese text written top-to-bottom, so the horizontal shape of the
> 96x24 bitmap is problematic--more generally, vertically written scripts
> such as the traditional Mongolian script (also requested) cannot be
> demonstrated within this framework.
>
>
> Thomas Chan
> tc31@cornell.edu
>
>
>
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