CJKV Information Processing

CJKV Information Processing is the definitive guide for tackling the difficult issues faced when dealing with complex Asian languages -- Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese -- in the context of computing or Internet services.

Unlike the English alphabet with a mere 26 letters, these complex writing systems use multiple alphabets comprising thousands of characters. Handling such an unwieldy amount of data is formidable and complex. Until now, working with these writing systems was an unattainable task to most, but this book clarifies the issues, even to those who don't understand East Asian languages.

This new book contains revised information from Ken Lunde's first book, Understanding Japanese Information Processing, and supplements each chapter with meticulous details about how the Chinese (hanzi), Japanese (kana and kanji), Korean (hangul and hanja), and Vietnamese (Quoc ngu, chu Nom, and chu Han) writing systems have been implemented on contemporary computer systems. This book is unique in that it does not simply rattle off information that can be found in other sources, but rather it provides the reader with hitherto unexplained insights into how these complex writing systems have been adapted for use on computers, and provides the user and developer alike with useful and time-saving tips and techniques.

Information on today's hot topics, such as how these writing systems impact contemporary Internet resources like the Web, HTML, XML, Java, and Adobe Acrobat, is also provided.

This book is of incalculable value for the developer, programmer, user, and researcher -- anyone who comes into contact with these characters in the context of computers or the Internet needs this book. Topics covered in this book include:

• Writing systems
• Character set standards
• Encoding methods
• Input methods
• Font formats
• Typography
• Output methods
• Programming and code conversion techniques
• Dictionaries and dictionary software

This volume also contains a host of valuable appendixes, such as code conversion tables, character set tables, character set indexes, mapping tables, Perl code examples, a glossary, and a detailed bibliography.