Re: [idn] An ignorant question about TC<-> SC

["Chun-Hsin Wu" <wuch@gate.sinica.edu.tw>]

> > 1. Most IMEs in Traditional Windows 2000 can support TC and SC
> >  directly without switching, even they can let the user type in
> >  Japanese characters without switching. It is not unusual for one IME
> >  to support all, or as many as possible, Unicode characters if the
system
> [snip]
>
> On Windows, you install 2 IME, one for TC and the other for SC. You
> toggle between these two while you key in.

I'm curious about why you are so confident that I must install
TWO IMEs, one for TC and the other for SC. Do you use TC
Windows 2000 daily? :-) I don't know whether you do, but I
do use TC Windows 2000 to input TC quite often. Besides,
sometimes I also use the same input method software to input
SC and Japanese characters for Web queries, althouth it is
designed specially for TC.

Anyway, I'm sure I can install ONE IME to input TC and SC
together. As examples, let's try to input the second Chinese
character of China, U570B for TC and U56FD for SC, by
any ONE of the input methods I mentioned in my last message.
(The example character means country/nation in English.)

Method 1. Type "EJI6", specifying the pronouncing of the
example character, into the default TC phonetic input method
of TC Windows 2000, and it will list lots of characters with
the same pronouncing in pages, 10 candidates per page.
Among them, if you choose Candidate 1, you get U570B,
the TC example character. Or if you choose Candidate 5
on the 2nd page, you get U56FD, the SC example character.

Method 2. Type "OKD" into the Boshimy input method
software for TC Windows 2000. (This input method is widely
used for most users who want to input TC characters fast.)
Among the prompt candidates, Candidate 0 is U570B,
the TC example character, and Candidate 2 is U56FD,
the SC example character.

In addition, Mr. Xiang Deng had also explained that he can
type TC AND SC in a very usual SC IME without switching.

So it is clear that we don't need to install TWO IMEs to
input mixed TC and SC in TC Windows 2000. The user also
does not need to toggle between TC and SC while input. It
is natural that one TC input method software aims to make
the user input as many Unicode characters (and as easy)
as possible. Indeed, almost every add-on TC input method
software can support far more HAN characters than those
defined in Unicode, since some other charsets define more
characters than Unicode. The market will drive the software
company to do so, becoming a Uni-input method software
and supporting as many HAN characters as possible.

I sincerely hope you get chance to try the above examples
and verify them.

>
> > 2. In cases of "Taiwan" and "Taipei", the TC and SC characters for the
> >    first character "Tai", U53F0 and U81FA, are both widely and
> >    interchangeably used in Taiwan. You can find examples of mixed uses
> >    in Chinese Web sites, such as TAIpei City Government, National
>
> They are both Traditional form one is T-T, the other is T-S. Both exist
> on a TC IME.
> I can understand the big problem of TC and SC domain names.

It depends on how you define TC and SC. You can also say
it is an example character that can be found in both TC and
SC. As I know, several characters in SC scripts and Japanese
scripts are *commonly*  and interchangeably used in Taiwan,
and part of them are supported in TC charsets. Chinese people
can recognize these kinds of characters equivalently.

Personally, I prefer to say they are big problems of HAN
domain names rather than TC-SC domain names. As an
example, there are three Han characters in Unicode for
my surname 'Wu', one of the top ten surnames in Taiwan:
U5433 for TC, U5434 for SC, and U5449 for Japanese.

> I am not too sure of the problem of "mixed TC & SC" identifiers. Please
> do provide some statistic if you can. Thanks.

As I know, due to current TC/SC registration policies in the
*running* testbeds that support the tsconv draft, you can not
get the precise statistics.


Chun-Hsin Wu