Re: Kanji reading

Ian Hickson wrote:
>> Section 4.6.20, "The ruby element", says:
>>> In this example, each ideograph in the Japanese text 漢字 is  
>>> annotated
>>> with its kanji reading
>>
>> The parallelism with "bopomofo reading" and "pinyin reading" in the
>> second and third examples in this section implies that "kanji  
>> reading"
>> is being used to mean "reading written in kanji". But in fact, the
>> reading is written in hiragana.
>
> What should the example say? "hiragana reading"? I know nothing about
> this, so I've no idea what the right label should be.

I suggest "reading in hiragana".

"Hiragana reading" implies that there are several types of reading,  
and a hiragana reading is one of them. But really there is only one  
reading (i.e. way to pronounce the word), but several different ways  
to write it. (Google backs me up on this: search results for "reading  
in hiragana" match this use, whereas search results for "hiragana  
reading" do not.)

> Should the word "kanji" appear anywhere in the description?

I think not. You could substitute "kanji" for "ideograph" if you  
prefer: "each kanji in the Japanese text 漢字 is annotated with its  
reading in hiragana" but that probably assumes a bit too much  
knowledge about Japanese for the intended readership.

(Just to confuse matters, 漢字 itself has the reading "kanji" when  
written in Roman letters.)

-- 
Gareth Rees

Received on Friday, 4 September 2009 19:52:41 UTC