On Thursday, March 21, 2002, at 04:02 , Doug Ewell wrote: >> John Cowan: >>> Traditional and Simplified characters are *not* unified in Unicode, >> >> Some characters, e.g. '一' (one), are used in *both* Traditional and >> Simplified Chinese. The characters that are used in *both* systems >> are indeed unified. > > Then there is no problem deciding which glyph to use, right?
Wrong. Try "People", For example. Japanese: http://kanji.zinbun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~yasuoka/cgi- bin/kanjibukuro.cgi/char/JIS-2916/UCS-8846/KYOIKU Simplified Chinese (PRC): http://kanji.zinbun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~yasuoka/cgi- bin/kanjibukuro.cgi/char/GB-5458/GBK-D6DA/UCS-4F17/JOYO Traditional Chinese (ROC): http://kanji.zinbun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~yasuoka/cgi- bin/kanjibukuro.cgi/char/CNS1-5C38/BIG5-B2B3/UCS-773E/JOYO As you see, Simplified Chinese is not just "Simplified" but a complete reinvention of the whole character. Even better example is U+673A. http://kanji.zinbun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~yasuoka/cgi- bin/kanjibukuro.cgi/data/UCS-673A In Japanese this one means 'a desk'. In Simplified Chinese, however, This one means 'a machine', or Simplified version of U+6A5F. Actually, Character Unification is not the invention (and the problem) of Unicode. Simplified Chinese is not only Simplified but Unified (not Unicode's fault, FYI). Try beef noodle, one of my favorite fast food when I was in China. You spell U+725B U+8089 U+9762 First one is "Cow" (well, you can't tell Bovine gender and maturity in Hanzi so it can mean an "Ox" or "Cub"), the second one is "Meet". So far so good. But check the last one. The last one is originally for 'Face' and it still means 'Face'. but it is somehow unified that way. Nood was originally U+9EB5 and 'Face' was just a part of radical. When I saw this at first in China, I can't help imagining how it is like wearing a mask made of beef :) Dan the Man with Beef Noodle on My Face
