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Received: by minnie.vk1xwt.ampr.org with NNTP id AA5588 ; Fri, 01 Jan 93 01:50:03 EST Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd Path: sserve!manuel.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!uunet!usc!sdd.hp.com!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu!jliddle From: jliddle@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu (Jean Liddle) Subject: Re: Dumb Americans (was INTERNATIONALIZATION: JAPAN, FAR EAST) Message-ID: <1992Dec27.223146.5959@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu> Date: Sun, 27 Dec 1992 22:31:46 GMT References: <1992Dec18.212323.26882@netcom.com> <1992Dec19.083137.4400@fcom.cc.utah.edu> <2564@titccy.cc.titech.ac.jp> Organization: Illinois State University Keywords: Han Kanji Katakana Hirugana ISO10646 Unicode Codepages Lines: 45 In article <2564@titccy.cc.titech.ac.jp> mohta@necom830.cc.titech.ac.jp (Masataka Ohta) writes: > >Do you know that Japan vote AGAINST ISO10646/Unicode, because it's not >good for Japanese? > >>So even if the Unicode standard ignores backward compatability >>with Japanese standards (and specific American and European standards), >>it better supports true internationalization. > >The reason of disapproval is not backward compatibility. > >The reason is that, with Unicode, we can't achieve internationalization. > >Unicode can not cover both Japanese and Chinese at the same time, because >the same code points are shared between similar characters in Japan >and in China. > >Of course, it is possible to LOCALIZE Unicode so that it produces >Japanese characters only or Chinese characters only. But don't we >need internationalization? > I have been following this discussion for some time, despite the (IMHO) obnoxious header :-). I have been surprised that up until now the 32-bit proposed standard (I no longer recall the OSI number) has not been mentioned. I personally would prefer this, for the reasons stated above (japanese/chines collisions in Unicode). Furthermore, for research involving ancient egyption texts or other "obscure" languages, 16 bits even with some expandability would probably not be sufficient. I personally would vote for support of 32-bit characters rather than Unicode, if anyone is able to scare up the docs on the proposed 32-bit character standard. This would allow Linux to avoid the comming difficulties with chinese/japanese font collisions, and also keep it out on the leading edge, rather than following Microsloth's somewhat ... ah ... shall we say, questionable leadership in this area. just my $0.02 worth. Jean. -- Jean Liddle Computer Science, Illinois State University e-mail: jliddle@ilstu.edu --------------------------------------------