Sorting in Japanese – An Unsolved Problem (2011)
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Sorting in Japanese – An Unsolved Problem (2011)
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Re: Sorting in Japanese – An Unsolved Problem (2011)
#2If im not mistaken, another unsolved problem is generating url segments (or "slugs") from characters such as chinese, arabic and possibly japanese as well.
Re: Sorting in Japanese – An Unsolved Problem (2011)
#3https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-Corner_Method
You can sort Chinese characters (including Kanji but i'm not sure they use the Four Corners Method) by the Four Corners method. Why would you need to sort kanji phonetically in the first place? Do Japanese users actually expect names to be sorted phonetically? English speakers don't expect names to be sorted by IPA so consistency of the sorting scheme should be all that matters.
Re: Sorting in Japanese – An Unsolved Problem (2011)
#4Am I missing something subtle in this Kanji example, or all 4 names actually written the same?:
"There are four Japanese women whose names you have to sort: Junko, Atsuko, Kiyoko, and Akiko. This does not seem difficult, until they each show you how they write their names in kanji:
淳子 (Junko) 淳子 (Atsuko) 淳子 (Kiyoko) 淳子 (Akiko)"
I'm not familiar with Japanese at all (and have never had to deal with localization beyond date formats), even less so written, but these seem like wildly different pronunciations for some spelled the same.
I know English has its own large set of warts with pronunciations and spellings (even disregarding US vs every other English speaking nation), but this seems overly odd.
How do you get further context on how to pronounce a proper name like this? The post mentions context, but obviously in the above example, lacking the "abc" spelling (as the post terms it), what context do you have to know the proper pronunciation?
Re: Sorting in Japanese – An Unsolved Problem (2011)
#5Just a thought experiment, don't take it too seriously:
The crux of the issue is that kanji don't have an inherent "natural" ordering that a user would expect. Sorting by their character code doesn't mean anything to a Japanese person. But, what if we made our own standard of what entails a "natural order". There's nothing about A–Z that makes the alphabet obligated to be in that order (and not something like based on sound or shape) other than it being the convention that developed. Even hiragana can have different orderings (AIUEO vs IROHA [0])
One proposed method would be to do it how the dictionaries do it: first sort by major radical, [1] and then by stroke count. This is something most Japanese learn when learning how to write characters anyway (of course ambiguities would arise when the radical is shared and the stroke count is the same, but we could just choose a third arbitrary factor; we'd also have to decide on a specific written form as stroke count can differ depending on whether it is handwritten or the font).
We could then teach our approach to schoolchildren and it would just become accepted over time like other things they learn. But wait you say, it's more natural for them to sort on pronunciation. However, if I gave you a list of polygon names and told you to sort by the number of sides they had, you'd be perfectly capable of doing it despite that not being alphabetical. Things are less "unnatural" if you grew up learning them and your brain doesn't experience dissonance.
Anyway, just my hot take.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iroha
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_(Chinese_characters)
Re: Sorting in Japanese – An Unsolved Problem (2011)
#6https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-Corner_Method You can sort Chinese characters (including Kanji but i'm not sure they use the Four Corners Method) by the Four Corners method. Why would you need to sort kanji phonetically in the first place? Do Japanese users actually expect names to be sorted phonetically? English speakers don't expect names to be sorted by IPA so consistency of the sorting scheme should be all t…
Kanji in Japanese are sorted by writing them out phonetically in Kana and then sorting by the kana.
English speakers don't expect names to be sorted by IPA because most English speakers don't know IPA, but all Japanese speakers do know the kana.
The fact that they are sorted as-if written in kana means that the exact same written character will be sorted differently according to context. For "not names" we actually do have fairly good algorithms for determining the pronunciation of Kanji, but for many names there is literally no way to know how to pronounce them without asking.
Re: Sorting in Japanese – An Unsolved Problem (2011)
#7Am I missing something subtle in this Kanji example, or all 4 names actually written the same?: "There are four Japanese women whose names you have to sort: Junko, Atsuko, Kiyoko, and Akiko. This does not seem difficult, until they each show you how they write their names in kanji: 淳子 (Junko) 淳子 (Atsuko) 淳子 (Kiyoko) 淳子 (Akiko)" I'm not familiar with Japanese at all (and have never had to deal with localization beyond…
Re: Sorting in Japanese – An Unsolved Problem (2011)
#8Am I missing something subtle in this Kanji example, or all 4 names actually written the same?: "There are four Japanese women whose names you have to sort: Junko, Atsuko, Kiyoko, and Akiko. This does not seem difficult, until they each show you how they write their names in kanji: 淳子 (Junko) 淳子 (Atsuko) 淳子 (Kiyoko) 淳子 (Akiko)" I'm not familiar with Japanese at all (and have never had to deal with localization beyond…
It's actually not possible.
There are some cases where the kanji characters are only used for the meaning and have literally no contribution to the pronunciation.
That is why every Japanese service provider will ask you for the pronunciation, without fail.
Re: Sorting in Japanese – An Unsolved Problem (2011)
#9Am I missing something subtle in this Kanji example, or all 4 names actually written the same?: "There are four Japanese women whose names you have to sort: Junko, Atsuko, Kiyoko, and Akiko. This does not seem difficult, until they each show you how they write their names in kanji: 淳子 (Junko) 淳子 (Atsuko) 淳子 (Kiyoko) 淳子 (Akiko)" I'm not familiar with Japanese at all (and have never had to deal with localization beyond…
That’s why japanese people sometimes when introducing themselves also mention the kanjis because of the wildly different readings. There is literally no way knowing the reading if the user doesn’t provide it.
Re: Sorting in Japanese – An Unsolved Problem (2011)
#10Am I missing something subtle in this Kanji example, or all 4 names actually written the same?: "There are four Japanese women whose names you have to sort: Junko, Atsuko, Kiyoko, and Akiko. This does not seem difficult, until they each show you how they write their names in kanji: 淳子 (Junko) 淳子 (Atsuko) 淳子 (Kiyoko) 淳子 (Akiko)" I'm not familiar with Japanese at all (and have never had to deal with localization beyond…
Yes, they are all written the same. This is not too much of an issue as not only do sites like Amazon ask for the pronunciation of your name, most any important paper form would have it as well. In more informal contexts you would just have to ask the person how to pronounce the name. We often need to do this in English with unusual or foreign names.