Re: tlug: Re: Japanese input

[Karl-Max Wagner <karlmax@example.com>]

> Japanese). Also, IPA is like a machine language with many instructions.
> Every sound can be expressed in IPA, but poeple will prefer a simpler
> notation that suffices for describing Japanese sounds only, as
No problem: just use the subset you need. Problem solved.
> programmers like to use high-level programming languages that are
Hmmm....you probably never programmed on a TMS 99000 or a NS 32000.
If these architectures would have prevailed, few people actually
would use HLL's. Everybody would use assembly. What I want to
say: well designed assembly makes HLL's largely unnecessary.
> suitable for their own purposes. Some languages may require IPA, but we
> can use romaji instead.
IPA is a lot better. It is used regularly for language teaching
in Europe. It is also used by linguists for codifying all sorts
of languages. It has been tested with pretty much all known
languages, even such tough ones as Navaho, Inuktitut and Samee.
> their writing method by an influential foreign culture have to use the
> language of the foreign culture, then start transforming the language
No. In fact, IPA has been used to provide writing for cultures
that didn't develop a writing system ( many native North
Amarical cultures are of that kind, despite being very evolved
and by no means primitive. I just would like to mention the
Pueblos ). This didn't do any harm to them, on the contrary, it
provided them with the power to write and made them stronger.
> 	Anyway, there are various options (using kanji+kana, romaji, IPA,
> English, new artificial notations,etc). We do not need to eliminate any
> of these. We do not need to decide which is the best, because it depends
This is a problem in Japan of the past. Keep everything. Never
throw anything away. This actually has caused today's hodgepodge
of writing systems in Japan. 

When I started it, I set out that in the Heian a clever guy
developed the kana to eventually replace kanji. The system was
field tested by court ladies like Murasaki Shikibu who wrote that
wonderful women literature in the Heian Age - AND THEY USED KANA
ONLY !!!!! It worked deswpite the homophone problems that existed
already back then. Now kana is some sort of specialized
syllabary specifically for Japanese. It's sort of a subset of
IPA. So if kana could do the trick, IPA can do it as well.

After the successful field test of kana Japan should have
discarded the kanji for good and used kana thereafter. Most
probably in this case Japan's history would have been totally
different. For the following let's assume that by the 15th
century Japan would have had a kana only system:

A clever guy in Japan invents printing with mobile letters
independently of Gutenberg. This makes proliferation of all
kinds of written artifacts much easier. Within decades all the
knowledge created by Japans' scholars is available everywhere.
Thing take a real leap forward. All sciences progress at a speed
unknown before. When the first European powers arrive they find
a super modern country superior to their own in almost any
respect. There is not even a thought of attacking this powerful
country. The Japanese develop advanced shipbuilding. Together
with their highly evolved mathematical and scientific knowledge
this enables them to start with global long range discovery
projects. Japanese explorers discover Australia and New Zealand
and colonize them. They arrive at the west coast of America and
colonize it, too. Other long range trading missions go to Europe
and establish an exchange of goods and ideas. Siberia finally
gets into their hands. The resources of Siberia fuel Japanese
power even more. End result: there would be two big power blocks
now: the European based one and the Japan based one. Japan would
be a superpower by now.

You laugh ? Think twice ! What I did in the above was to use the
state of the art in Japan about 500 years ago ( which was at
least on a par with Europe ) as a starting point, assumed that
the Gutenberg type printing was invented and used by then in
Japan ( had Japan had a kana only system by then this
doubtlessly would have happened - the technical abilities were
in place - I even suspect it would have happened MUCH earlier
than in Europe ). and then used what had happened in Europe
after that.

If you analyze European history you see a marked difference
between BEFORE and AFTER Gutenberg. After Gutenberg things got
ahead vastly faster. 

Actually I wondered a long time why the West has become so
predominant. Ruling out any racial considerations which don't
stand up to any serious test anyway, it had to be something
else.

In fact, my networking experiences gave me a clue. Soon after
the proliferation of global networking in the form of the
Internet progress, particularly in the software field,
litterally exploded. Things like Linux were staped out of the
ground in almost no time. At the beginning of the nineties free
software was scarce, now it's abundant. It dawned on me that 500
years ago Gutenberg's printing system must have had a similar
impact, speeding up things not just a bit, but by orders of
magnitude. This explained everything: Europe had everything in
place and it had a writing system with few characters crucial
for a Gutenberg printing press. The rest is history. In less
than 100 years the European powers became more powerful than
anybody else on the planet - and they stayed that for a long
time to come.

The advantage of a character set with a small set of characters
pertains until now: the West used the first telegraphs, the
first typewriters, the first teletypes, the first computers etc.
etc. All things that were only possible with a simple writing
system using the technology available when those things were
invented.

Conclusion 1: having a simple writing system is a huge
advantage. Proven by history in the extreme. Having a complex
writing system has dire consequences. Also proven by history in
the extreme.

Conclusion 2: with the world becoming a global village indeed a
unified writing system will sooner or later become a definite
necessity. Thus IPA is probably the way to go. It would in fact
render the creation of several technical products, particularly
speech transliterators, a lot easier ( the thing does not need
any advanced context analysis any more - this is why so far only
the transliterators for Swedish worked ).

Just a remark on the sideline: Didi you ever have to spell the
name of somebody on the phone in Japan ? Well, there is no
spelling. You explain: "It is written with the Kanji so-and-so
followed by kanji so-and-so ---naaa, not that one that one with
the meaning < you use another word with the same meaning and
just hope that the person at the other end gets it > ---yep,
you got the first one but the second one actually is < same
procedure repeated > OK, that's it < Ugh, the person finally got
it ---glad !!!! >" AAAARRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH !!!! For masochists
only ! How easy is it back here: "I spell: Whisky - alpha - golf
- november - echo - romeo. Got it ? OK." How's that for a change ?
I like it better :-).

                               Karl-Max Wagner
                               karlmax@example.com
--------------------------------------------------------------
Next TLUG Meeting: 13 June Sat, Tokyo Station Yaesu gate 12:30
Featuring Stone and Turnbull on .rpm and .deb packages
Next Nomikai: 17 July, 19:30 Tengu TokyoEkiMae 03-3275-3691
After June 13, the next meeting is 8 August at Tokyo Station
--------------------------------------------------------------
Sponsor: PHT, makers of TurboLinux http://www.pht.co.jp