Re: tlug: kanji or romaji for Japanese? (was: parallel-port IDE)

[Scott Stone <sstone@example.com>]

On Mon, 19 Oct 1998, Jonathan Byrne wrote:

> On Mon, 19 Oct 1998, Scott Stone wrote:
> 
> > This would indicate to me that something IS wrong with the Japanese
> > language, if you have to explain yourself verbally via the writing system.
> 
> Haven't you ever heard native English speakers spelling things over the
> phone to solve problems with homonyms or get the write spelling of unusual
> names?  All languages have this, to varying degrees.  This is also
> completely changing the topic, since the original claim was that kanji could
> and should be done away with.  The evidence against that has been amply
> presented.

Not often, no.  If I spell my name to someone over the phone, it's because
there's lots of morons working at mail order places taking orders, and
they don't always listen well :)  Besides, it's a lot easier to spell
something out using a 26-character alphabet than it is to describe a kanji
verbally...

> > 
> > Everyone always says that the technology-vs-japanese issue would be
> > different if computers had been invented in Japan or whatever, but... how?
> 
> They would most likely have been kanji-enabled from the outset.  If not,
> they would have been kana-enabled from the outset, with kanji following as
> soon after that as technically possible.  As a result, we would have far
> fewer problems with m17n today.
> 
> > I was thinking about this the other night and wondering, _how_ would
> > computers (or, maybe now we also need to consider the phone?) be different
> 
> The phone, of course, is not dependent on any particular writing system or
> language, so areas where it would be different are much smaller.

Well, Japanese phones are certainly smaller, is that what you meant? :)

--------------------------------------------------
Scott M. Stone <sstone@example.com, sstone@example.com>
               <sstone@example.com>
Head of TurboLinux Development/Systems Administrator
Pacific HiTech, Inc (USA) / Pacific HiTech, KK (Japan)
http://www.pht.com		http://armadillo.pht.co.jp
http://www.pht.co.jp	        http://www.turbolinux.com


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