CJKV Information Processing: Chinese, Japanese, Korean & Vietnamese Computing [Paperback]

Ken Lunde (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1565922247 | ISBN-13: 978-1565922242 | Publication Date: January 1999

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.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

CJKV Information Processing covers all major writing systems for Vietnamese (including Quôc ngu, chu Nôm and chu Han), Japanese (kana and kanji), Korean (hangul and hanja), and Chinese (hanzi), plus the various means of integrating multiple character sets and systems for transliterating these languages into the Latin alphabet. Author Ken Lunde explains what's involved in taking input in the various languages and goes into great detail about output, including some detailed coverage of professional-quality computer typesetting with Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese (CJKV) characters.

But CJKV Information Processing doesn't restrict itself to input and output issues. There's extensive coverage of the special issues that arise when you attempt to work with multibyte characters inside programs--especially Java programs, since that language is especially adroit at internationalization tasks. You'll find ready-to-use algorithms for detecting and converting characters among the various sets.

Almost half of the book is consumed by exhaustive character tables listing every CJKV character set ever defined by a standards body, software vendor, or other organization. Comprehensive is the operative word here--Lunde even gives space to 145 hanzi characters defined by Hong Kong's Department of the Judiciary. You'll find a full suite of keyboard mapping tables, too. With the same thoroughness and clarity that made his Understanding Japanese Information Processing such a hit among members of the Pacific Rim crowd, Ken Lunde provides an unparalleled guide to computing with the CJKV character sets. --David Wall

About the Author

Ken Lunde was born in 1965 in Madison, Wisconsin, grew up in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin, and entered the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1985 as a freshman. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in linguistics in 1987. He received his Master of Arts degree in linguistics in 1988. He finally received his Doctor of Philosophy degree in linguistics in 1994, and his dissertation was entitled "Prescriptive Kanji Simplification." He joined Adobe Systems Incorporated in 1991, and is currently Project Manager, CJK Type Development.

Product Details

• Paperback: 1128 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media (January 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565922247
• ISBN-13: 978-1565922242
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.1 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,116,125 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is the bible of Asian language information processing, January 13, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: CJKV Information Processing: Chinese, Japanese, Korean & Vietnamese Computing (Paperback)

The previous edition of this book was so useful that I had two copies, one at work and one at home. I work in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, and the previous edition, which only claimed to cover Japanese, was still the most useful book on Chinese and Korean info processing that I ever found. With this new edition, the author has extended coverage to all Asian languages that use Chinese characters, or used to do so in the case of Vietnamese, as part of their writing systems.

Thank goodness he has. The author, Ken Lunde, has an encyclopedic knowledge of this material. In addition, he is one of those people to whom anything less than strict, literal correctness is intolerable. Authors of this sort usually write in a style reminiscent of the federal tax code. Lunde manages to avoid this, creating one of those rare and delightful computer books that serve as a lucid tutorial the first time through, and as a strict and comprehensive reference thereafter.

The principal reason I consider this book the bible for Asian language information processing is the extreme difficulty of getting most of this information via any other source. In fact, I'd be hard pressed to think of another computer book whose original source material is as scattered, poorly documented, and often unreliable as that Lunde had to gather to produce this book. His job of ferreting out the details, cross-checking, error correction, and organization into a single book makes this almost a work of journalism. If you do CJKV work, you'll need more than just this book, of course, but the book is full of references to other material, so this is the place to start.

Lunde also provides a lot of usable source code in the book. This is not unusual in a computer book, but this code is special in two ways. First, it's available in C, Java, and Perl, not just in C. This is refreshing, given the increasingly prominent roles played by Java and Perl on the Internet--the place where multilingual computing arguably matters most.

Second, his code serves as a great checklist for what has to be done by any similar code. This is one of those difficult types of programming where many bugs aren't easy to see, because of the large number of obscure "gotchas" and arcane details. Lunde doesn't miss much, and he revels in these arcane details. His code is not highly optimized, and he admits as much, but if his code does something, you need to do it, and if it doesn't, you (probably) don't need to, either. This fact alone justifies the cost of the book for any developer to whom bugs might have financial consequences.

If you're going to do CJKV work, this is the bible. As I said, it's not the only thing you'll need, but it's where you should start.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must-have for CJKV developers, February 9, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: CJKV Information Processing: Chinese, Japanese, Korean & Vietnamese Computing (Paperback)

This is an outstanding guide for English-speaking developers who must target Asian languages. For those of us who do not read or speak these languages, it tackles some of the scariest issues: different types of characters, when they are used, how they relate to each other, and how they are encoded in software.

Lunde's explanation of the structure and history of Asian written languages is fascinating reading in its own right.

If developing on the Windows platform, I would also recommend "Developing International Software for Windows 95 and Windows NT" by Nadine Kano (Microsoft Press). Lunde's book contains crucial background information regarding Asian character sets, as well as some general algorithms; the Kano book focuses on implementation details specific to the Windows environment.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The bible for coding Asian languages, December 29, 2001

By 

Mick McAllister [Lagniappes] (Colorado) - See all my reviews

This review is from: CJKV Information Processing: Chinese, Japanese, Korean & Vietnamese Computing (Paperback)

Lunde's book is essential to anyone in the software localization or internationalization business. It simply covers everything. Want to know how to do regular expressions in Japanese? Page 445. The actual definition of "Mincho" (as in the Mincho font)? Check the Glossary. Postscript clones that handle Chinese? page 391.

The book is intended primarily for software engineers, but the subject matter is treated so comprehensively that it is an essential desk reference for translators, information developers, project managers, production managers, and marketing executives.

Just get it, Ok?