Re: Bopomofo ruby use cases

On Wed, Dec 15, 2010 at 11:12 PM, Koan-Sin Tan <koansin.tan@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 8, 2010 at 10:45 PM, Richard Ishida <ishida@w3.org> wrote:
>> When it comes to finalising the CSS3 Ruby spec, it seems that there is still a lack of clarity about certain aspects of how bopomofo ruby should be handled.
>>
>> To help with that, I am trying to compile information about how bopomofo ruby is used.  Perhaps this could become a Note at some point, or eventually be folded into a Chinese Layout Requirements document.
>>
>> For the time being, I am still seeking information about some things and hoping that people can send me examples of usage in the wild.
>>
>> You can find what I have done so far at http://rishida.net/blog/?p=494.   Please send comments, additional information, and examples of use.
>>
>
> I went to bookstores, collected some information, and took some photos.
> I'll say more later. Quick summary:
>
> 1. No horizontal Bopomofo ruby is in use right now, as far as I can tell
> 2. Horizontal Bopomofo is still in use, mostly by horizontally typeset
> dictionaries
>    (either Chinese ones or Chinese-English ones)
>
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/koansin/sets/72157625472336915/
>

Bopomofo usages:
1. As Kenny said in our previous mails, Bopomofo is taught in grade schools
   in Taiwan. Although there is a "standard" from the Ministry of
Education (MOE)
   including both vertical and horizontal representations, only the vertical one
   is taught in grade schools. Thus, books and materials for schoolchildren,
   including textbooks and picture books, use vertical Bopomofo even when
   they are typeset horizontally [1][2]. These kind of examples are
easy to find, if
   you need more photos, let me know.

  [1] http://www.flickr.com/photos/koansin/5263448222/
  [2] http://www.flickr.com/photos/koansin/5262838101/

2. The other major usage of Bopomofo is to annotate ancient texts. For example,
    [1] shows the Book of Songs [2] with Bopomofo. Those old books are
printed in
    modern script so we may know most of those Han characters. But some of the
    pronunciations are much different from current Mandarin, so we
need Bopomofo.
    Tons of such books are in print [3].

[1] http://www.flickr.com/photos/koansin/5262839121/
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Songs_(Chinese)
[3] http://www.flickr.com/photos/koansin/5263450048/

3. Horizontal Bopomofo ruby: It seems there is no book with horizontal Bopomofo
    ruby in print nowadays. I believe if I go to National Central
Library [1] and go thru
    microfilms, I can find some examples. However, since it's not in
use right now,
    I think we can ignore it for CSS3 Ruby Module for now.

[1] http://www.ncl.edu.tw/mp.asp?mp=5

4. Horizontal Bopomofo: Yes, horizontal Bopomofo is still in use,
mostly by horizontally
    typeset dictionaries. A dictionary by MOE in 1981 used it [1][2].
Some more recent
    big dictionaries use it too [3][4]. Most Chinese-English
dictionaries that have Bopomofo
    use horizontal one [5].

[1] http://www.flickr.com/photos/koansin/5275283315/
[2] http://www.flickr.com/photos/koansin/5275284467/
[3] http://www.flickr.com/photos/koansin/5263450946/
[4] http://www.flickr.com/photos/koansin/5275519423/
[5] http://www.flickr.com/photos/koansin/5262842035/

Last, something to clarify, I reread your post and saw "sometimes, it
[Bopomofo] is used  for aboriginal Taiwanese languages." Probably,
you think that Taiwanese means aboriginal Taiwanese languages, or
you read it somewhere such as Wikipedia. I don't think that's right.
usually when we say we speak Taiwanese,it means a variant of
South Min [1]. Some people do use Bopofomo and Bopomofo
extended [2] to annotate Taiwanese. However, aboriginal Taiwanese
languages are in Austronesian language family [3].  Not in
Sino-Tibetans. Usually, IPA or various orthographies developed by
Western missionaries are used to record those aboriginal languages,
because Bopomofo can't cover pronunciations of aboriginal Taiwanese
languages.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Min_Nan
[2] http://unicode.org/charts/PDF/U31A0.pdf
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austronesian_languages

-- 
// koan-sin tan

Received on Monday, 20 December 2010 02:56:07 UTC