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From: gordan@maccs.UUCP (Gordan Palameta)
Newsgroups: comp.std.internat,sci.lang
Subject: Computers and human languages (was Re: What is a byte)
Message-ID: <717@maccs.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 16-Aug-87 22:03:06 EDT
Article-I.D.: maccs.717
Posted: Sun Aug 16 22:03:06 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 17-Aug-87 00:45:21 EDT
References: <218@astra.necisa.oz> <142700010@tiger.UUCP> <2792@phri.UUCP> <6252@brl-smoke.ARPA> <479@sugar.UUCP>
Reply-To: gordan@maccs.UUCP (Gordan Palameta)
Organization: DCSS, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Lines: 39
Xref: mnetor comp.std.internat:109 sci.lang:1163

In article <479@sugar.UUCP> peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes:
>In Japan programming languages are the least of the problems their written
>language causes them. An incredible amount of data is never stored anywhere
>but on the original form, photocopies of said form, or faxed copies of said
>form. Even with the best tools available it's just too hard to keypunch.

Everything you mention above was true of English, less than ten years ago.
It's easy to forget just how recent a development the personal computer is,
without which "office automation" would be far less practical.

>This, of course, makes it even more amazing that they have been so succesful
>in the world community. It seems likely to me, though, that at some point
>they're going to have to break down and drop Kanji for professional use.

Not very likely.  The whole point of using computers is that they should be
adapted to serve us, not the other way around.

French and German did not adapt to computers by dropping cedillas, umlauts,
and accents; instead we now have ISO Latin.  Arabic has not adapted to
computers by simplifying the calligraphic qualities of its script; instead
sophisticated software is being used to properly display Arabic without
sacrificing its aesthetic qualities (see the latest issue of Communications
of the ACM).  And Japanese will one day be fully accomodated by computers;
enormous progress has already been made towards this end.  Japanese without
kanji would not be Japanese.

To look at issues such as this from a different perspective, consider English.
English uses a highly non-phonetic script; the illiteracy rate in the U.S. is
at alarming levels.  This might be a non-sequitur, but undoubtedly a phonetic
script for English would make life a lot simpler.  Will it ever happen?
Not a chance. 

I'm not sure if this discussion belongs in comp.std.internat, so I
cross-posted to sci.lang and removed comp.lang.c.  Follow-up wherever you
see fit.

-- 
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"Sumasshedshii vsekh stran, soyedinyaites'"        Gordan Palameta