Ruby characters
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Andrew
Ruby characters
I have come to the conclusion that someone needs to invent some kind of ruby character notation for Hokkien characters so that people know how to pronounce e.g. 丈夫 (ta-po or tiong-hu?) 大家 (tai-ka or ta-ke?), etc. I know there is an extension of the zhuyin fuhao for Hokkien, but it seems pretty badly designed - surely the whole idea of zhuyin fuhao is that it can be written with a brush? Perhaps there could be a simple bai/wen marker?
I don't know what are you trying to say but red color is wen du,black color is baidu in qing period 漳浦 dialect dict
www.zgsd.net/paimai/views.asp?PLUCODE=16756
www.zgsd.net/paimai/views.asp?PLUCODE=16756
May be Andrew is talking about phonetic notation (furigana) such as hiragana or katakana written above/right to Kanji in Japanese [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furigana]. Isn't it, Andrew? Hmm... may be it's a good idea to have a simple marker since often we don't use different colours.
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Andrew
I like the colour idea. But yes, I was thinking of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_characters. You can see the extended zhuyin for Hokkien at http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U31A0.pdf, but they look very peculiar, and not very Chinese.
Very interesting, Andrew.
I was surprised that I'd never heard of this term "ruby" before.
I was quite familiar with the concept in the context of bibles, and Old English / OHG texts. I've always called it an "interlinear gloss". The Wikipedia article does talk about this usage, but uses the term "interlinear documents", which (to me) doesn't quite capture the meaning. I.e. the ruby text *itself* is not an "interlinear document" but rather, is an "interlinear gloss". Perhaps (for the Western usage) the best one could say is that "interlinear documents" are documents which have (been provided with) "interlinear glosses" / "ruby text".
I agree with Andrew that the Extended Bopomofo doesn't look very Chinese. With all those little circles, the individual characters remind me (very slightly) of "shorthand" (the overall effect is of course quite different). Furthermore, a number of the Extended Bopomofo look to me almost like Devanagari, or Devanagari-derived letters (though I suppose someone who really knows Devanagari wouldn't think so, it's just an outsider's impression). In any case, the idea doesn't appeal to me that much.
The idea of colours seems to be a good one, but then I'd argue for just slight differences, e.g. black for one reading and grey for another. Red and black as described by Ong in dictionaries is fine, but I think it would be far too "loud and distracting" in continuous text.
Cheers,
Sim.
I was surprised that I'd never heard of this term "ruby" before.
I was quite familiar with the concept in the context of bibles, and Old English / OHG texts. I've always called it an "interlinear gloss". The Wikipedia article does talk about this usage, but uses the term "interlinear documents", which (to me) doesn't quite capture the meaning. I.e. the ruby text *itself* is not an "interlinear document" but rather, is an "interlinear gloss". Perhaps (for the Western usage) the best one could say is that "interlinear documents" are documents which have (been provided with) "interlinear glosses" / "ruby text".
I agree with Andrew that the Extended Bopomofo doesn't look very Chinese. With all those little circles, the individual characters remind me (very slightly) of "shorthand" (the overall effect is of course quite different). Furthermore, a number of the Extended Bopomofo look to me almost like Devanagari, or Devanagari-derived letters (though I suppose someone who really knows Devanagari wouldn't think so, it's just an outsider's impression). In any case, the idea doesn't appeal to me that much.
The idea of colours seems to be a good one, but then I'd argue for just slight differences, e.g. black for one reading and grey for another. Red and black as described by Ong in dictionaries is fine, but I think it would be far too "loud and distracting" in continuous text.
Cheers,
Sim.
I just realized that The Amoy Hymnal 閩南音聖詩 Ban5-Lam5-Im1 Sing3-Si1 published by Telok Ayer Chinese Methodist Church (Singapore, 1955) has marker "◦" (small circle) beside Hanji that should be sung using literary pronunciation. So long time ago they already knew the need to indicate correct pronunciation.
e.g. The first line of "Hark the Herald Angels Sing", the famous Christmas hymn/carol by Charles Wesley:
請 聽 天 使 大 聲 唱, 讚 美 新◦ 王◦ 到 世◦ 上
chia*2-thia*1-thi*1-sai3 tua7-sia*1 chiu*3, o1-lo2-sin1-ong5 kau3-se3-ciu*7
[Hark the herald angels sing, "Glory to the new-born King"]
So in that line only sin1, ong5 and se3 are literary, the others are colloquial. That hymnal only employs Hanji, without romanization at all.
e.g. The first line of "Hark the Herald Angels Sing", the famous Christmas hymn/carol by Charles Wesley:
請 聽 天 使 大 聲 唱, 讚 美 新◦ 王◦ 到 世◦ 上
chia*2-thia*1-thi*1-sai3 tua7-sia*1 chiu*3, o1-lo2-sin1-ong5 kau3-se3-ciu*7
[Hark the herald angels sing, "Glory to the new-born King"]
So in that line only sin1, ong5 and se3 are literary, the others are colloquial. That hymnal only employs Hanji, without romanization at all.
Hi Niuc,
I think I prefer the system you describe too, because it is something which is available in any medium.
Colours are fine for printing books and magazines, and for electronic-based text like emails, MS-Word documents etc, but then one cannot produce the same effect when writing a snail-mail, or a sheet of paper, or a sign to tell people things.
Sim.
I think I prefer the system you describe too, because it is something which is available in any medium.
Colours are fine for printing books and magazines, and for electronic-based text like emails, MS-Word documents etc, but then one cannot produce the same effect when writing a snail-mail, or a sheet of paper, or a sign to tell people things.
Sim.