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Notes-on-electronic-digital-CJKV-typography-shenanigans-and-idiosyncrasies.txt
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Notes-on-electronic-digital-CJKV-typography-shenanigans-and-idiosyncrasies.txt
***DRAFT*** (ЧЕРНОВА)
Last updated: 17-May-2020 ; $06:57 ч. 17 май 2020 г.
https://github.com/sahwar/Bulogos
Бележки по странностите, тънкостите, идиосинкразиите и ексцентричните, чудати
аспекти на азиатската електронна цифрова типография, полиграфия, калиграфия,
ръкопис и оформление и форматиране на текстове, написани на китайски, японски,
корейски, виетнамски и тай(ланд)ски...
Unlike the 20th-century-era writing in Western scripts (like the modern Greek
alphabet, the Latin & Latin-derived alphabets (e.g. the English alphabet), the
Cyrillic alphabet, and maybe the Armenian alphabet), Asian scripts (Asian
writing systems) are usually far more complex, which poses difficulty in writing
with them on physical paper or in electronic digital format. Gladly, Unicode
(now in its 10th-13th edition as of the year 2020) and its Han unification and
CLDR projects - have achieved quite a lot toward making this basic task much
more convenient for every computer user of a fairly new PC (desktop PC or
laptop/netbook/nettop/etc.; or a smartphone/phablet/digital electronic
smart-tablet/smartwatch/smartTV/Android-TV-box/ SBC (single-board computer),
low-powered embedded devices, and via Linux - even on fairly old hardware which
meet certain hardware requirements; etc.).
Most modern Western/European languages are written left-to-right and
top-to-bottom (RTL-TTB), but they can also be written top-to-bottom in a
vertical line (one or more characters per line, with or without a
hyphenation-dash or another glyph used as a hyphenation character!). Ancient
Western texts, however, were somtimes written in a special way called
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boustrophon .
(in this way of writing, you can start writing left-to-right top-to-bottom BUT
you switch to writing right-to-left top-to-bottom on the NEXT line...)
This manner of writing direction is largely non-existent in modern
Western/European(-derived) texts except for decorative, artistic,
advertisement/PR, and special visual effects, and in some
esoteric&secret-languages and in ad-hoc secret coded-languages for communication
between spies & to avoid man-in-the-middle plaintext cryptographic attacks that
will expose your private [written] communication to unwelcomed 3rd-parties,
etc.
On the other hand, many Asian scripts are often written in a top-to-bottom
vertical way even to this way, while some curious cases are (modern?) Hebrew
(which is written right-to-left top-to-bottom), and the Sumerian cuneiforms and
Scandinavian runes, etc.
The primary difference between writing in most Western scripts (Western writing
systems) lies in the extensive use of whitespace (blanks, or empty intervals
between letters/glyphs) and on the complex use of punctuation characters/glyphs.
CJKVTM (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and possibly Vietnamese and Thai and
Mongolian) typography DOES NOT use much whitespace, and in the case of written
Mandarin Chinese, whitespaces are almost non-existant, while punctuation was
imported from its use in Western scripts BUT in a much more restricted and
crude, grammatical-emphatic-oriented manner (according to my fairly crude
understanding of basic contemporary Mandarin-Chinese grammar and formal writing
and typography).
The following example/sample text illustrates the lack of whitespaces in Chinese
texts (the contents of the text are NOT important, this is just pasted below as
a VISUAL EXAMPLE OF HOW MANDARIN CHINESE IS WRITTEN, ESPECIALLY in the format
of electronic digital text (in the Unicode UTF-8 text(ual) encoding):
我信
我信，拼音wǒ xìn，英文iTrust，顾名思义，“我相信”或“我们相信”的意思。
我信，是一个”服务消费比较平台”。通过海量的大数据分析，以简洁清晰的信息图(infographic)或者表格形式，为用户提供深度的产品或服务的综合比较，让用户能更方便的选出最好的产品或服务。我们能提供给消费者的对比项目可谓包罗万象，从餐馆到度假村，从律师到理发师，从狗粮到化妆品，甚至金融公司和理财产品我们也不放过。
我信，是一家"消费者权益倡导组织"，准确地给消费者提供公平和中立的消费情报。我信的数据来源包括公共数据资源（如自政府、媒体、研究机构）及第三方数据库(如生产商、供货商、零售商网站)，还有专家或用户评级等。数据来源透明，数据选取、分割、处理的工具都非常可靠，因此用户大可对我信提供的信息准确度放心。
我信，结合了数据过滤算法和人力管理方式： 向消费者提供“没有偏见的、由数据驱动的”比较意见，但产品和服务的类别是由人工界定的。对用户来说，我们认为以决策为动机的建议才是有价值的建议。对商家来说，我信的用户都是优质的潜在顾客，这些用户之所以寻求获得比较信息，目的就是存有想要购买产品或服务的想法，而不仅仅是浏览。
我信，从成立开始，从不刊登广告，也不看任何企业或商家的脸色行事，只把对评估报告的信誉放在第一位。我信是对技术与产品有着纯粹的信仰，对广告充满警惕的典型极客。我信决定从一开始就要让用户为产品付费，我信之所以能对用户收费，是因为我信为用户创建了”强大、简洁、专注、无广告”的产品。
我信数据有限公司，即将启航。
Source:
http://woxin.com/
* * *
================================================================================
WHAT'S THE CATCH??? WHAT TO TAKE INTO ACCOUNT WHEN WRITING
IN CJKV(TM) SCRIPTS (WRITING SYSTEMS)
================================================================================
ALWAYS REMEMBER to put the typography of Asian scripts in mixed-scripts texts
--- to a higher (1.8x to 3-4x bigger) pt typographic size in comparison to the
Western-scripts text!!!
And use a UNIFORM (i.e. mostly just one digital font!!!) good-enough
complete-enough Asian-scripts-supporting digital electronic font for the main
body of Asian-scripts text!!!
HTML also supports special Ruby-characters HTML-tags as a way to add
Hiragana/Katakana phonetic-guides to Japanese kanji text, etc. (but this can
also be used as a sort of 'hot-trick hack' so as to utilize it to include
phonetic transcriptions or transliteration or some witty remarks to texts
written in ANY Unicode script... If you want fancier pop-up/ToolTip
metadata-revealing extra text, I suggest you try the qTip2 JavaScript software
(or similar HTML5+CSS3+JSv6+ stuff) by including it in your HTML code, or just
use <abbr title="World Health Organization">WHO</abbr> instead of
<acronym></acronym>, etc.).
(((NOTE-1: There are also several attempts to ease the work of manga comics
scanlators, translators, QA, lettering, lazy typesetters & layout editors, image
cleaners, image deconsors (using digital retouching, rescans from print copies,
and raster2vector (png2svg) software & using Image-Super-resolution
artificial-neural-networks software) and fan translators by adding&showing
HTML5+CSS3+JSv6+-powered translucent (semi-transparent) overlay
boxes/rectangles/dots (usually of the light-yellow or light-blue color) over
non-translated foreign texts in some digital image (like comic/manga
speech-bubbles & text labels on objects in a comic panel), thus enabling the
end-user to view possible translations & comments via the technology of showing
(the translation of the) texts via ToolTip on-mouse-over/on-hover/or on-tap
(for touchscreen smartphones, etc.).
Examples of this technology idea can be found on some NSFW (not safe for work,
i.e. pornographic, graphic, nude, sex-showing, nudity-showing, RTA (restricted
to adults) / 18+-ONLY, content) online imageboards, e.g.
http://rule34.xxx
http://gelbooru.com
http://danbooru.donmai.us
http://4chan.org
http://8chan.org
https://chan.sankakucomplex.com/?tags=original
https://chan.sankakucomplex.com/?tags=has_audio
https://chan.sankakucomplex.com/?tags=animated
https://chan.sankakucomplex.com/?tags=translated
https://chan.sankakucomplex.com/post/show/20718209
https://chan.sankakucomplex.com/?tags=japanese_text
https://chan.sankakucomplex.com/?tags=speech_bubble
etc.
This tech is especially useful for integration into open-source manga-reader
HTML5-powered software packages which power websites like http://hbrowse.com
and http://nhentai.net , http://hentai2read.com , http://hentairules.com ,
http://luscious.net , etc.)
It can also be integrated with using HTML <abbr></abbr>&<acronym></acronym>
tags and by using HTML-entities, _HTML ruby-characters tags_ (for adding
transcription and/or transliteration over some other electronic digital text),
via CSS3+JSv6+-complex-typography&complex-webpage-layout+the-latest-color-
digital-web-fonts-fileformats-as-supported-by-Acid3-passing-modern-HTML5-web-
browsers, and also integrated with JavaScript libraries like _jQuery_, node.js,
amber.js, vue.js, and CSS-expanders like SASS&LESS & keyword-autocompletion
software for text-editor apps; headless web-browsers triggered over ssh/MOSH,
etc.; + speech-synthesis CC (closed-captions) screen-readers software for the
blind or the visually impaired (and you can even add HTML5 media tags that
include fandubs audio reading/audio-recording of 1 person or several people
reading the written texts from some manga comic or Western webcomic! See
http://blambot.com for a short dictionary of Western comic typography terms...)
In addition, unless it is a videoclip that already has audio built-in, one can
add a separate audio-track (e.g. for fandubs of what is written/said in a static
manga page or in an animated GIF image, or in a video-clip) file via the HTML5
media tag, and make it play on a static raster image or on an animated GIF
file, etc.
This can even be combined with adding a subtitles-file track that is written
in a popular subtitles file-format and edited in e.g. subtitle-editing app like
Aegisub, SubtitleWorkshop v5+, Gnome Subtitle Editor, Jubler, etc.
There is also a WebVTT (??) HTML file-format as a digital subtitle file-format
for CC (CLOSED CAPTIONS), but .srt and .ass/.ssa remain the most popular
& most widely used subtitle file-formats... (VTT = virtual teletext)
This can also be used by professional trained linguists & by hobbyist
philologists to put overlay translation suggestions, transcriptions,
and transliterations - to publically available online Internet galleries of
scanned high-resolution ancient manuscripts (e.g. recently made public scans of
old Cyrillic & old Bulgarian books & scrolls & historical newspapers, etc.!),
artifacts with writing on them, scrolls, as well as to aid in proofreading &
fan-scanlating manga & webcomics, etc.
NOTE-2: The above NOTE-1 describes a sorta novel 'hack' trick which is just a
useful piece of tech, but IRL (real-life) sex and real-life living is
infinitely more ineffable and much more amazing & painful & scary & pleasurable
and is perceptual-experiential-experimental-existential...
Don't remain a total Internet addict or a VR-porn/online-Internet-porn addict,
you fool! Mingle with all sorts of different people IRL (in-real-life) and do
banter-flirting after having done enough self-improvement & body training, etc.
)))
This is essential for print dictionaries and for electronic digital
(offline or online Internet) dictionaries, too! An example is my print copy of
the pocket-size 'Oxford Dictionary of Mandarin Chinese' (by the Oxford
University Press; it has a red cover and includes the essential extended list of
basic calligraphic shapes (brushstrokes) that when combined in some
limited&specific ways - together constitute 99% of all Chinese (Mandarin)
characters).
Other examples include [specialized?] monolingual&bilingual online Internet
dictionaries of Japanese, of Chinese, etc.
GNU Unifont, Google Noto fonts, and some other fonts seem to be a good fit for
nice such fonts.
Also see CJK/CJKVTM fonts on GitHub.com, GitLab.org, SourceForge.net,
Freecode.net, etc. and do google.com web-searches for more free digital
electronic fonts.
It is also strongly recommended to do searches for such Asian-scripts-supporting
fonts on Wikipedia.org , http://openfontlibrary.org , and on/via other
font/typography websites.
================================================================================
[1] NOTE: In some styles of writing Western scripts, various different glyphs
(now different Unicode codepoints) were used to write some punctuation
characters, e.g. `text' in UNIX CLI-commandline apps.
In addition, in some Western texts, people used DOUBLE-WHITESPACE to indicate
the division between SENTENCES. While this usage is largely obsolete as of 2020,
it is now finding support when perfoming automated algorithm-driven NLP (natural
language processing) on electronic digital texts --- just because this extra
whitespace neatly indicates the boundaries between sentences and is written by
the writer himself/herself. NLP in that sense also includes electronic digital
textual corpus-linguistics studies and corpus datasets and wordlist datasets
used for research&development purposes, e.g. as citations that give real-life
examples of word usage & MWE (multi-word expression) usage IN CONTEXT - in the
body of some (e.g. online Internet) more comprehensive (monolingual or
bilingual, or multilingual) dictionaries.
Also, print text-formatting still carries with it some different styles of
formatting the boundaries between text paragraphs, which include the use of
empty lines or tabs (or multiple whitespaces characters one after another), or
a combination of both. This very paragraph and the paragraph below are examples
of this usage.
This paragraph uses several whitespace characters AND also an empty line
between the paragraph above! And it also includes a visually hidden BUT still
there whitespace last trailing character at the end of each line so as to aid
with performing regex/regexp-based substitutions via regexp-based
Search&REPLACE in advanced text-editor application-software programs.
Isn't that freaky!?!
P.S. There are several slightly different ways to text-format paragraph
boundaries. The above is just one of them. One can also use HTML5 HTML-entities
(and/or Unicode whitespace-like codepoint characters) as well as utilize CSSv3
& even JavaScript-v6+ to add more visual awesomeness or to achieve culturjamming
artistic effects, e.g. WALL-OF-TEXT, or whatever...