🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <ISHIKAWA.93Jan8125424@ds5200.personal-media.co.jp>, ishikawa@personal-media.co.jp (Chiaki Ishikawa) writes:
> 
> From a Japanese perspective:
> 

> May I suggest that before going into ISO arena, each country (or
> culture group) codify the existing methods clearly in writing?  And

     [very relevant example of difficultly of sorting with kanjinames]
     [with no furigana phonetic cues]

> I believe the correct approach to sorting is to codify the existing
> rules of each country/culture/whatever, and then publish them in a
> easy to read documents which are understandable by reasonably talented
> programmers of other countries. Code examples for each sorting rules
> will go a long way. This will help I18N from the bottom.

What are you're ideas for a Japanese specific solution?

I've often wondered why JIS level 2 was switched to a radical sorting
routine from the level 1 phonetic orientation.  This has made it quite
cumbersome for me to try to code dictionary utilities, for example.  One must
*construct* radical orderings for level 1 and kana orderings for level
2 manually.  Wouldn't a standard with fields for both radical order
and kana order be more efficient, especially with more of a focus on
international compatability in formats?

> I doubt if it is just a complexity issue. The whole concept of
> language independence sounds like a pipe dream to me. (see the
> discussion of Japanese sorting above.) There is nothing wrong about
> language-specific solutions IMHO as long as such solutions (adopted
> from existing practices) are freely available in understandable
> documentation.

Perhaps it would not be a problem solvable now, but given standards
that were linguistically independent--some abstracted stardard that
would regulate linguistically specific examples--it would be a
possibiliity, right?  Perhaps, the attempt by some to propose the
"default" sorting--read Western romanized sorting--as something
naively approachable may be flawed, but certainly talk should
continue for a solution that is linguistically independent and thereby
inclusive of all linguistic data.


I agree the language-specific solutions are fine for now.  Especially
considering that's all that's really practical. :)

>  Chiaki Ishikawa,  Personal Media Corp.,  MY Bldg, 1-7-7 Hiratsuka,
>  Shinagawa, Tokyo 142, JAPAN. FAX:+81-3-5702-0359, Phone:+81-3-5702-0351
>  UUNET: ishikawa@personal-media.co.jp
-- 
jamiller@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
James Miller

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