Overview of Chinese Language: Characters, Dialects, and Scripts, Papers of Chinese Language

Download Overview of Chinese Language: Characters, Dialects, and Scripts and more Papers Chinese Language in PDF only on Docsity! CHIN 410 Chinese Information Processing Unit 1: Introduction to the Chinese Language, Script and Software (Week 1 and 2) Concepts Chinese language Putonghua, Guoyu and Huayu  Mandarin - Guanhua, an official language used in the court, the language of officials (Normam)  Guoyu - National language. The name implies that other minority languages are not national languages. It was coined during the period of the Republic of China and it is still used in Taiwan  Putonghua - Common Speech, Common Language (Definition see Ramsey page 14) The person who proposed the name of “Putonghua” was Qu Qiubai. The first person who proposed the name was Qu qiubai, one of the early communist leaders in China. 最早提出普通話的名稱的是瞿秋白. 1955年正式定名為普通話. 1956年公佈推廣 普通話的指示 (Details for Mandarin, Guoyu, Putonghua, see Ramsey pp 7-26)  Hanwen – used in Korea and Japan  Huayu or Huawen – Singapore or overseas  Zhongguohua – Languages in China  Zhongwen – alternative to Hanyu, focusing on written language Chinese Dialects Chinese people speak dialects. China has eight major dialects. Geographical distribution 地理分佈 See Ramsey Figure 6. Hu Yushu, 1962 Modern Chinese Northen (Beijing) 647,000,000 Wu (Shanghai) 77,000,000 Yue (Cantonese Guangzhou) 47,000,000 Xiang (Hunan Changsha) 46,000,000 Min South 28,000,000 (Southern Fujianese Xiamen) Min North 11,000,000 (Northern Fujianese Fuzhou, Taiwan) Hakka (Mei Xian) 37,000,000 Gan (Jiangxi Nanchang) 22,000,000 Dialect speakers speak Putonghua or Guoyu with dialectal accents. Educated people recognize characters. They know the structure of characters (strokes and radicals). Why are linguistic issues related to Chinese information processing? 1. When one inputs characters, he may use the pronunciation of characters. When a person’s pronunciation is not standard, the input Pinyin will be incorrect, thus he may not be able to retrieve a proper character. 2. Since all educated people know the structure of characters, the stroke number, the character components or radicals may be used to input characters. 3. When voice recognition software is developed, the dialect accents must be taken into consideration. 4. When OCR software is developed, the character structure must be taken into consideration. Chinese script Number of characters – what problem it renders in computing? Number of characters: Norman p.72, 約六萬，通用一萬，常用3000 國家語言文字工作委員會組織力量從1986年起開始研制《現代漢語常用字表》，并于1988年1月26 日由國家語言文字工作委員會和國家教育委員會聯合發布。《現代漢語常用字表》選收了2500個常 用字、1000個次常用字，共3500字。(李行健、費錦昌2001年9月25日人民日報) Norman Structure of characters Stroke, radicals and components are important concepts for coding characters. Stroke—Each movement of pen on paper. A stroke starts when the pen touches paper and it ends when the pen leaves the paper. (Xie) There are 5 kinds of strokes: horizontal line, vertical line, dot, oblique line, and twisty line (Fu, 1985; Li, et al., 1988). Radical— Radicals (or radical components) are clusters of strokes that act as constituent units of Chinese characters. Some researchers call the semantic component the "radical" and the phonetic component the "stem" (e.g., Fang & Wu, 1989). However, in more recent studies, all components regardless of their function in a character, tend to be given the unified name of "radical". The total number of radicals in Chinese writing varies from 567 to 648 with differences in the character pool and the decomposition principle (Fu, 1985; Han, 1994a; Li, et al., 1988). 東漢許慎說文解字 540 radicals or graphic classifiers. Many radicals (about 50%) are characters (Li, et al., 1988). 2. The input methods based on strokes or components may be different. The radicals or components of traditional and simplified characters are different.谢 - 謝 have different radicals. 后 後 are completely different glyphs. Traditional 後來 皇后 心臟 骯髒 關係 Simplified 后来 皇后 心脏 肮脏 关系 Problem caused by conversion from simplified characters to traditional characters: 后来 => 后來 心脏 => 心髒 关系 => 關系 Chinese software One of the most important facts of Chinese computing is the difference between Chinese word processor and Chinese system. The word processor is an independent software program which allows one to type, view and print Chinese text. It may be DOS based or Windows based. The Chinese system (or third party Chinese system) is not a word processor. It provides a Chinese environment and allows one to process Chinese. Other applications such as Microsoft Office are needed. For example, Byx and NJSTAR are two Chinese word processor. Byx is a DOS based word processor. NJSTAR’s earlier version is DOS based, and the later versions are Windows based. The only function of these programs is to type, view and print Chinese text. In addition, the DOS versions do not have typesetting functions. NJSTAR Windows version have more functions of typesetting. The Chinese systems can be DOS and Windows systems. CCDOS and Kuochiao are two DOS based system. One supports simplified characters and the other supports traditional characters. Chinese Star, Unionway and Twinbridge are Windows based system. They can be used together with English applications. However, because Microsoft Office and other English programs are being upgraded often, the Chinese systems may not support some applications very well. These Chinese third party systems needed to be upgraded too in order to be compatible with the English applications. In China and Taiwan, Chinese systems are built in computer and come together with computers purchased. The Microsoft Windows have develop Chinese Windows systems for the users in China. Byx, DOS based simple Chinese word processor. It handles simplified characters only. GB code. It has only one print font. NJSTAR, DOS and Window based Chinese word processor, handles both simplified and traditional characters. Kuochiao, DOS based Chinese system, traditional characters, big5 code Yitien, same as Kuochiao CCDOS, DOS based Chinese system, simplified characters, GB code. Twinbridge Chinese Star Unionway Microsoft Microsoft Cwindows and Pwindows Microsoft multilingual support 2000 and XP Mac OS with multilingual support Practice Creating Chinese documents using NJSTAR Creating a file Selecting an input method Switching between Chinese and English mode Saving a file Assignment Facts: Use the following review questions to understand the concepts covered in this unit: Is Chinese a language that has only one form? If not what are the varieties ? Which variety is the standard language in China? How many characters are there in Chinese? How many characters are commonly used? What are the writing instruments for Chinese? Why are these linguistic issues related to Chinese information processing? Acts: Creating a Chinese document using NJSYAR Type a plain text of about 500 characters The text must include both Chinese and English Save the file for future editing 3 Zhuanshu (Seal) ] KE ih 5 AB, RIE (403 nc-221 wc.) KE $8@ Lishu (Clerical) B35 bS A #83 Kaishu (Standard) SA al é aoa A bb ae ay if Be 3 # e Yr pe ® ar) Aw ge Vie a a Heer ee : 47 Xingshu (Running)