Re: [css3-text] Emphasis marks position in Traditional Chinese

On Tue, Jan 18, 2011 at 12:50 PM, Koji Ishii <kojiishi@gluesoft.co.jp> wrote:
>>> 3. Taiwanese never use emphasis marks in horizontal text flow, while Hong Kong uses.
>
>>I choose 3
>
> You chose the toughest one :) Proving existence is easy by one example, but proving "never used" is not.
>

Yes, I know. I think the only thing I can do is to skim through all
the dictionaries and reference books in a big library, if it's
necessary. But that cannot prove "never".

However, I can argue that emphasis mark is not part of official
punctation "standard" in Taiwan. Modern punctuations in use in China,
Hong Kong, and Taiwan all started from a proposal in 1910s. There were
no emphasis mark along the line from that proposal to the current
"standard" in Taiwan.

> The problem is that, someone in Taiwan said it should be drawn above text at some point in the past, so we have conflicting opinions here, and neither of you and "the someone" have the proof yet. I'd like to make sure that people who believe so are comfortable with what you think.
>
> It's way old, I can find it first appears in 1999 WD of CSS3 Text[1]. I'm trying to reach people who worked on it, I'll bring back if I can figure out anything.
>

If you found the guy, that would be good.

> If my understanding is correct, Taiwan is trying to build a national library using HTML/CSS/EPUB technology, correct? People there may be familiar with ancient documents. I'll also try to reach them, but if you have any contacts with them, that'd be also helpful.
>

Maybe what you said is the National Digital Archive Program in Taiwan.
That's a good idea. How do they put vertical texts with emphasis
circles such as [2] into to horizontal text. Tim Chien is working for
the program. Maybe Tim can ask around?

[1] http://www.ndap.org.tw/
[2] http://140.109.18.74/ImageCache/ImageCache/00/07/a2/36.jpg

>
> [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/WD-i18n-format-19990322/#a6-5
>
>
> Regards,
> Koji
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Koan-Sin Tan [mailto:koansin.tan@gmail.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, January 18, 2011 11:12 AM
> To: Koji Ishii
> Cc: www-style@w3.org; Ambrose LI; Kang-Hao (Kenny) Lu; pingooo; Ethan Chen
> Subject: Re: [css3-text] Emphasis marks position in Traditional Chinese
>
> On Tue, Jan 18, 2011 at 7:26 AM, Koji Ishii <kojiishi@gluesoft.co.jp> wrote:
>> Ambrose kindly provided pictures of emphasis marks and underlines in horizontal flow in Traditional Chinese used in Hong Kong, which indicate that the current CSS3 Text[1] saying "Traditional Chinese in horizontal should draw marks above text" could be wrong for Hong Kong.
>>
>> The current definition in the spec is the one we copied from 2001 WD[2], and MS Word's implementation matches to the spec.
>>
>> Given these two, I think we're in the situation where we need to choose one of the followings:
>> 1. 2001 WD[2] and MS Word was wrong, emphasis marks for Traditional
>> Chinese should be draw below text regardless of countries 2. It varies by countries. In Hong Kong, draw below text. In Taiwan, draw above text.
>> 3. Taiwanese never use emphasis marks in horizontal text flow, while Hong Kong uses.
>>
>> I'm not sure which one is the right answer.
>>
>> Can anyone help us to resolve this issue? Scanned pictures of printed materials like the one Ambrose provided would be a great help.
>>
>
> I choose 3.  As Ambrose or other guys may have mentioned, emphasis marks are not widely used in Hong Kong (as far as I can tell). I never saw any emphasis mark in horizontal text in Taiwan before. I did see some books have emphasis marks in vertical text in Taiwan. One example is a Chinese translation of Kenzaburō Ōe's
> 『読む人間－読書講義』[1].
>
> I can go to libraries and bookstores to check dictionaries as Ambrose did, but I doubt if I can emphasis marks in dictionaries targeting Taiwanese readers.
> As Kenny and
> other guys may have mentioned, emphasis mark is not in Ministry of Education's "Revised Guide for Punctuations" [2], punctuation tables like Ambrose shown are mostly just modified [2].
>
> [1] http://www.flickr.com/photos/koansin/5289221272/
> [2] http://www.edu.tw/files/site_content/m0001/hau/haushou.htm
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Ambrose LI [mailto:ambrose.li@gmail.com]
>> Sent: Tuesday, January 18, 2011 6:31 AM
>> To: Koji Ishii
>> Cc: Kang-Hao (Kenny) Lu; pingooo; Ethan Chen; Koan-Sin Tan
>> Subject: Re: Underline in Taiwan
>>
>> 2011/1/17 Kang-Hao (Kenny) Lu <kennyluck@w3.org>:
>> [...]
>>> Nope. No worry. But since that what's in concern is the case in
>>> *horizontal writing*, can you verify that what's in the current
>>> draft[1] does not reflect what Hong Kong people require?  My reasoning was:
>>>
>>> 1. The current draft says in the table "In Traditional Chinese,
>>> emphasis dots in horizontal writing are *above* the text."
>>> 2. HK people write in Traditional Chinese[2] 3. You mentioned in [3]
>>> that HK people require what's written in the paragraph from Oxford
>>> Beginner's Chinese Dictionary. (emphasis dots should be *below* the
>>> text)
>>
>> Yes, we use traditional Chinese and emphasis dots should definitely be below the text. This is how I learnt it in school. I don't remember which grade though, but it was before Hong Kong was reverted back to the PRC, so referring to a dictionary is just a convenient way to express school-taught knowledge. Regrettably, I have thrown away all my grade school textbooks when my family moved to Canada. The current draft is definitely wrong about traditional Chinese usage as used in Hong Kong.
>>
>> The sad truth is that while they are still being taught, they are not really in common use, probably because software support came in too little too late and so people got used to doing things some other way (meaning Western, software-supported ways). Printed samples other than textbooks and dictionaries will be hard to find.
>>
>> So, in the absence of any printed examples other than dictionaries, I'll include two photographed pages from two dictionaries I have at home (both are small, student dictionaries):
>>
>> 6437. Taken from 新雅中文字典 / 何容, ed. Hong Kong: Sun Ya Publications (HK) Ltd. 1985.
>> 6438. Taken from the dictionary I cited earlier, 牛津中文初階詞典 / 布裕民, ed.
>> Hong Kong: Oxford University Press. 1998. ISBN 0-19-591153-9.
>>
>>> If any of the above is wrong or not reflecting reality, please tell
>>> us! If the above is correct, in order not to split the table further
>>> into "Chinese (Traditional in HK)" and "Chinese (Traditional in TW)",
>>> I think merging all Chinese variants makes more sense.
>> [...]
>>
>> 2011/1/17 Koji Ishii <kojiishi@gluesoft.co.jp>:
>>>> Koji, can you ask Fantasai where the part that saying "Chinese
>>>> outside PRC uses emphasis dots above the text in horizontal writing" came from?
>>>
>>> It's in original WD:
>>> http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/WD-css3-fonts-20010731/#font-emphasize-prop
>>> s
>>>
>>> And also MS Word implements that way by following advices from MS Taiwan.
>>>
>>> If you guys think the table in:
>>> http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css3-text/#text-emphasis-position
>>> is incorrect and has any proofs (like scan of printed materials) to convince Microsoft, that'd be a great help.
>>
>> I know my personal opinion is just that, but I would say the reverse is in order. Since everything we know about Taiwan right now says that emphasis dots in horizontal writing simply does not seem to exist in Taiwan (even as theoretical school-taught knowledge), I would say that we should ask MS Taiwan to produce proof of what they said.
>>
>> In the meantime I'll try to ask someone else in Taiwan and see if he has any additional information. And if I have the chance I'll see if I can find anything in bookstores. When is the deadline for this?
>>
>> --
>> cheers,
>> -ambrose
>>
>> does anyone know how to fix Snow Leopard? it broke input method
>> switching and is causing many typing mistakes so it is very annoying
>>
>
>
>
> --
> // koan-sin tan
>



-- 
// koan-sin tan

Received on Tuesday, 18 January 2011 06:59:59 UTC