RE: New characters query (Hexagrams)
On Wed, 4 Jul 2001, Christopher John Fynn wrote: (Couldn't a ZWJ be used as a way of joining two trigrams as a hexagram?) No! :'-(( Please don't overpollute the ZWJ. There's already more semantics to that codepoint that one can simply count on her/his fingers... roozbeh
Re: New characters query
I don't think there's any point in encoding 64 hexagrams; especially when we have the pieces already. Use the pieces of three and position them with a drawing program. We don't have combining thingies for putting chess pieces on board squares, either. Rick
Re: New characters query
Rick McGowan wrote:
I don't think there's any point in encoding 64 hexagrams; especially when
we have the pieces already. Use the pieces of three and position them with
a drawing program. We don't have combining thingies for putting chess
pieces on board squares, either.
Hi Rick,
I was half in this camp with you to begin with, with my comments about
the IDC, but if John Jenkins says I'm in favor of this, then I guess I
should take a stab at defending it ...
Encoding the 64 hexagrams has surely come up in the past, and on the off
chance that I can put a different spin on it ... here are points 1-3 in
favor, rebuttals of points A-C against, and a quote from John Lennon and
the Plastic Ono Band:
--1: The 64 hexagrams are semantically distinct written signs associated
with specific words. Each of the 64 hexagrams has a unique name, of one
or two syllables (see my earlier post). Each name is intimately
connected with the sequence and meaning of the 6 lines.
--2: They represent a very important feature of the most important of
the Chinese Classics. This text, _Zhou Yi_ ('the Zhou Dynasty [classic
of] change'), was considered by early Chinese, and is considered by many
modern people, to be the most abstruse and subtle book in the world. In
these respects, these signs represent a primary semantic level of a book
which is at least tantamount to a religious text, if not actually one in
many people's minds (depending on the definition of religion).
--3: They are attested in use all over the world, anciently and modernly
(China, Tibet, Japan, US ...). They appear in many many printed books,
both in Asia and elsewhere. For a sample of English titles in print, go to
http://www.amazon.com and search for I Ching (~357 hits) or Book of
Changes (~89).
Now, examining some points against:
--A: They are compositionally formed from the 8 trigrams.
Rebuttal: By this reasoning, the 8 trigrams themselves ought not to have
been encoded, since the 8 trigrams can be generated from simple broken
and unbroken lines. This alone is not a reason to encode them, but it is precedent.
--B: They derive their distinct meanings from the composition of the 2
composing trigrams.
Rebuttal: It is agreed that their meanings are distinct from the
meanings of the 8 trigrams. However, many would contend that the
meanings are compositionally derived from the broken and unbroken lines.
See A above.
--C: They are primarily used in China, and a proposal to encode them
ought to come from China.
Rebuttal: See point 3 above.
---
... I don't believe in I Ching ...
God, by John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band
http://members.aol.com/pop1rock1/JohnLennon/Lyrics/lyric5.html
Re: New characters query
At 04:16 PM 7/2/2001, Michael Everson wrote: At 12:33 -0700 2001-07-02, Edward Cherlin wrote: Has anyone proposed the following for inclusion in Unicode? If so, what is their status? Daoist Hexagrams, 64 forms (the trigrams are already included, but with no combining mechanism) You're welcome to, if you have evidence for these. OK. The Cangjie secondary signs, 87 forms for Traditional Chinese, plus 6 more to extend the system to Simplified Chinese. All Chinese characters can be decomposed into the 24 main Cangjie signs (which are common characters) plus these abstract shapes. The signs are used extensively, in both illustrations and text, in textbooks on Cangjie in Chinese, and recently, in English (Cang Jie Method, by Edouard Butler. Taiwan, 2001). Some of the Cangjie secondary signs are in Unicode (e.g. a few Korean kwukyel), but not in any systematic manner . Samples? The attached UTF-8 text file, viewable with MS Arial Unicode, is a table of the shapes that I have found in Unicode as characters and sample characters for each shape, whether including in Unicode or not. http://www.sungwh.freeserve.co.uk/sapienti/chongkit.htm Tutorial http://www.cjmember.com/index.htm Book in English http://www.ied.edu.hk/has/comp/cj/fnotes.htm and links from there. Secondary signs http://www.lsa.umich.edu/asian/chinese/courses/sample_sw/chinese_419/fall99/CangJie/summary.htm and links from there. Secondary signs Numerous books in Chinese. Almost any Chinese language bookstore anywhere in the world will have at least one. For example, Cangjie Shurufa Step-by-Step, ISBN 957-708-551-2, which I bought in Milpitas, CA (just north of San Jose). In Unicode: -- Michael Everson Edward Cherlin Generalist A knot! Oh, do let me help to undo it. Alice in Wonderland
Hexagrams (was Re: New characters query)
At 11:18 PM 7/2/2001, Rick McGowan wrote: I don't think there's any point in encoding 64 hexagrams; especially when we have the pieces already. Use the pieces of three and position them with a drawing program. We don't have combining thingies for putting chess pieces on board squares, either. Rick We don't have a problem with diagrams in any case. But we're talking about using hexagrams in text. Edward Cherlin Generalist A knot! Oh, do let me help to undo it. Alice in Wonderland
RE: New characters query (Hexagrams)
Richard Cook wrote: --A: They are compositionally formed from the 8 trigrams. Rebuttal: By this reasoning, the 8 trigrams themselves ought not to have been encoded, since the 8 trigrams can be generated from simple broken and unbroken lines. This alone is not a reason to encode them, but it is precedent. But I thought proposals for characters with decompositions into existing characters are no longer being accepted. (Couldn't a ZWJ be used as a way of joining two trigrams as a hexagram?) - Chris
Re: New characters query
Another list member mentioned (off-list) the system of 9 bigrams and 81 tetragrams. These appear in the text of a book called [U+592a][U+7384][U+7d93] Tai Xuan Jing by [U+63da][U+96c4] Yang Xiong.(c.53BC-c.18AD). Where the 64 hexagrams are based on a binary system, the 81 tetragrams are based on a trinary system. They're much less well-known, a relatively recent innovation, and a much less influential imitation of Zhou Yi. I don't think anyone is proposing to encode these ... are you?
Re: New characters query
I think the absence of the 64 hexagrams is a mistake, and the idea of composing them out of the trigrams (or of composing the trigrams out of pieces either) is extremely silly. Sorry, Rick, but there are things one can decompose and things one cannot. These are semantic entities, regardless of the glyphic representation. -- Michael Everson
RE: New characters query (Hexagrams)
At 11:40 AM 7/3/2001, Christopher John Fynn wrote: Richard Cook wrote: --A: They are compositionally formed from the 8 trigrams. Rebuttal: By this reasoning, the 8 trigrams themselves ought not to have been encoded, since the 8 trigrams can be generated from simple broken and unbroken lines. This alone is not a reason to encode them, but it is precedent. But I thought proposals for characters with decompositions into existing characters are no longer being accepted. True for accented letters where the combining marks already exist, but I don't think we want to have two sets of trigrams, one spacing and the other combining. Do we? (Couldn't a ZWJ be used as a way of joining two trigrams as a hexagram?) That would put them side by side. Don't even think about suggesting special case semantics. - Chris Edward Cherlin Generalist A knot! Oh, do let me help to undo it. Alice in Wonderland
Re: New characters query
At 23:18 -0700 2001-07-02, Rick McGowan wrote: I don't think there's any point in encoding 64 hexagrams; especially when we have the pieces already. Use the pieces of three and position them with a drawing program. That isn't plain text. We don't have combining thingies for putting chess pieces on board squares, either. Yes, and, accordingly, our standard doesn't offer adequate support for chess as it has been traditionally typeset either. -- Michael Everson
RE: New characters query (Hexagrams)
At 13:59 -0700 2001-07-03, Edward Cherlin wrote: But I thought proposals for characters with decompositions into existing characters are no longer being accepted. True for accented letters where the combining marks already exist, but I don't think we want to have two sets of trigrams, one spacing and the other combining. Do we? Gods, no. (Couldn't a ZWJ be used as a way of joining two trigrams as a hexagram?) That would put them side by side. Don't even think about suggesting special case semantics. Yuck, yuck. -- Michael Everson
Re: New characters query
John Cowan wrote: Rick McGowan scripsit: I don't think there's any point in encoding 64 hexagrams; especially when we have the pieces already. Use the pieces of three and position them with a drawing program. We don't have combining thingies for putting chess pieces on board squares, either. No. But don't the hexagrams appear in running text with hanzi? If so, then IMHO they should be encoded separately. Yes, that's right. In running text with Hanzi, and also in running text with Kanji, and also in running text with English, and what have you ...
Re: New characters query (Hexagrams)
Michael Everson wrote: At 13:59 -0700 2001-07-03, Edward Cherlin wrote: But I thought proposals for characters with decompositions into existing characters are no longer being accepted. True for accented letters where the combining marks already exist, but I don't think we want to have two sets of trigrams, one spacing and the other combining. Do we? Gods, no. There are arguments for seeing many signs as having decompositions, for example, most Hanzi are composite ... and I've even seen decomposition schemes that beautifully decompose roman text into a small number of graphical primitives ... the thing is, I think most people would agree that graphical decomposition, for all it's elegance, is not always the way to go when encoding semantic units ... larger composite units are more manageable to humans ... (Couldn't a ZWJ be used as a way of joining two trigrams as a hexagram?) That would put them side by side. Don't even think about suggesting special case semantics. Yuck, yuck.
Re: New characters query
$B$i$s$^(B $B!z$8$e$&$$$C$A$c$s!z(B $B!!!_$"$+$M(B $B!(B: Re: New characters query At 12:33 -0700 2001-07-02, Edward Cherlin wrote: Has anyone proposed the following for inclusion in Unicode? If so, what is their status? Daoist Hexagrams, 64 forms (the trigrams are already included, but with no combining mechanism) You're welcome to, if you have evidence for these. Hell, we've ALL seen these. Who hasn't played with the I Ching once in their life? They are cool. That is good. Is there any sort of Hanzi collation scheme that puts the Han digits one through nine in numerical order? Poor Han digits. All the other digits get to be right next to their friends, but not the Han digits! And the Han digits are probably the oldest of all digits! Except maybe the zero. (Did they get it from us or did we get it from them?)
Re: New characters query
Michael Everson wrote:
At 12:33 -0700 2001-07-02, Edward Cherlin wrote:
Has anyone proposed the following for inclusion in Unicode? If so,
what is their status?
Daoist Hexagrams, 64 forms (the trigrams are already included, but
with no combining mechanism)
You're welcome to, if you have evidence for these.
Evidence? There's ample evidence, starting c. 1000 BC, with
[U+5468][U+6613] _Zhou Yi_ (aka _Yi Jing_ aka _I Ching_ aka _The Book of
Changes_), an artifact of the Zhou Dynasty ...
Here they are with the _Da Xiang_ ('The Great Symbolism') commentary:
http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~rscook/html/Da4Xiang4.html
But for combining mechanisms ... Hey! another use for an IDC: what about
[U+2FF1] ...
Re: New characters query
At 7:07 PM -0700 7/2/01, Richard Cook wrote: Evidence? There's ample evidence, starting c. 1000 BC, with [U+5468][U+6613] _Zhou Yi_ (aka _Yi Jing_ aka _I Ching_ aka _The Book of Changes_), an artifact of the Zhou Dynasty ... I agree with Richard here. It's silly to have the trigrams and not the hexagrams, although I know why it worked out that way. Richard, are they used much *outside* of the Yi? If so, I think it's reasonable to add them. -- = John H. Jenkins [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://homepage.mac.com/jenkins/
Re: New characters query
John H. Jenkins wrote: At 7:07 PM -0700 7/2/01, Richard Cook wrote: Evidence? There's ample evidence, starting c. 1000 BC, with [U+5468][U+6613] _Zhou Yi_ (aka _Yi Jing_ aka _I Ching_ aka _The Book of Changes_), an artifact of the Zhou Dynasty ... I agree with Richard here. It's silly to have the trigrams and not the hexagrams, although I know why it worked out that way. Richard, are they used much *outside* of the Yi? If so, I think it's reasonable to add them. Sorry to butt in and I look forward to Richard's response, but yes the 64 gua (hexagrams) are used in hundreds or thousands of books that are not the Yi. I could probably find half dozen examples in my own little library. (But you'll have to wait until this winter when I get back to organizing it.) I don't why Edward Cherlin called them Daoist. The main commentary is attributed to Confucius. They occur in all kinds of books ... medical, astrological, feng-sui (geomancy), Daoist, etc. Jon -- Jon Babcock [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: 64 Hexagrams, was re: New characters query
John H. Jenkins wrote: At 7:07 PM -0700 7/2/01, Richard Cook wrote: Evidence? There's ample evidence, starting c. 1000 BC, with [U+5468][U+6613] _Zhou Yi_ (aka _Yi Jing_ aka _I Ching_ aka _The Book of Changes_), an artifact of the Zhou Dynasty ... I agree with Richard here. It's silly to have the trigrams and not the hexagrams, although I know why it worked out that way. Richard, are they used much *outside* of the Yi? If so, I think it's reasonable to add them. Well, the thing is that the Yi itself is a major industry in publishing. One of the largest topical bibliographies I've ever seen is a Zhou Yi bibliography. Thousands of books in many different languages spanning thousands of years. The system of divination is all over Asia in various permutations. And to call them Daoist as I believe the original poster did, is rather beside the point: these symbols originated in China long before there was anything called Daoism ... If they're going to be encoded, I believe that they ought to be encoded in the order in which they appear in Zhou Yi, which is not a strict binary order. A binary ordering is in the table at the top of this page: http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~rscook/html/Da4Xiang4.html On that same page the traditional ordering as handed down in Zhou Yi is sequence in the list below on the same page. This PDF also has the traditional order, reading from top, left to right: http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/~rscook/pdf/64GuaTradOrder.pdf I made TrueType fonts for these a while back, if you'd like them to craft the proposal. This file has the traditional ordering, with naming, pronunciation and HYDZD references: http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/~rscook/text/64Gua-TradNamesPY.txt
Re: New characters query
John H. Jenkins wrote: At 7:07 PM -0700 7/2/01, Richard Cook wrote: Evidence? There's ample evidence, starting c. 1000 BC, with [U+5468][U+6613] _Zhou Yi_ (aka _Yi Jing_ aka _I Ching_ aka _The Book of Changes_), an artifact of the Zhou Dynasty ... I agree with Richard here. It's silly to have the trigrams and not the hexagrams, although I know why it worked out that way. Richard, are they used much *outside* of the Yi? If so, I think it's reasonable to add them. I think this PDF makes the traditional arrangement more explicit: http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/~rscook/pdf/64Gua-TradOrder-dec.pdf
