Re: Unicode, character ambiguities

[Tomohiro KUBOTA <tkubota@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

At Wed, 9 Jan 2002 12:43:31 +0100,
Pablo Saratxaga wrote:

> CJK characters unified are actually the same, with only idionsyncrasic
> differences. A person not able to recognize them won't be able to read
> a real life text with some fancy fonts (like in ads for example), or a
> hand written text, which have variations often greater.

Not true.  I am a native Japanese speaker.  There are some characters
whose Japanese version is very basic (and elementary school student
can read) while I cannot read Chinese version.

I feel Chinese version of many characters are strange, thogh aI kan
mANage t0 reed +hem.  It is as funny just like the computer is
a beginner Japanese student.

Many others are funny just because of different typeface method.
I feel about half of characters are exactly same or virtually same
for daily usage.

Many older Japanese people can read traditional-Chinese style, because
Japanese people used to use the style until about 1950.  However, I
have not seen these characters in Japan other than in library or
in secondhand book shops.

Believe me, I read tens of ads every day (on TV and on newspapers)
because I live in Japan.  (Sometimes Japanese ads may use very difficult
character which nobody can read.  The purpose is just to give an
authorized or intelligent impression.)

---
Tomohiro KUBOTA <kubota@xxxxxxxxxx>
http://www.debian.or.jp/~kubota/
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