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Many Cantonese vernacular characters have been added to such Unicode fonts such as Microsoft's MingLiU font for "Traditional Chinese." The extended Big5 set contains a number of vernacular characters used in Cantonese, besides some more rarely-used characters and alternate graphs. However, these extended characters are not readily accessible for input. The various input methods that use romanization -- Pinyin, JyutPing, and so forth -- cannot access that set of Cantonese vernacular characters, for example. That is, one cannot select those characters because they are not part of the character set in either Big5 or GB code. To input those characters, one could, of course, use the "brute force" method and enter the actual internal codes, but that is clearly too cumbersome. An alternative solution is to use such input methods as Cangjie, which allows one to "compose" the characters in Big5. For example, RichWin 97 for Windows 95 (upgradable to Windows 98) allows one to input the vernacular Cantonese characters and they can be displayed in MS Word 97 operating in English Windows 95 or in (Traditional) Chinese Windows 95. For the characters to display in English Windows, it is necessary to select Big5 code and the Cangjie input method, or there would be a blank space in lieu of the vernacular character.*In moving into English Windows 98 with MS Office 2000 installed on my current PC, it turns out that it makes a difference if one is using RichWin 97 or RichWin 2000 to view the Cantonese vernacular characters. RichWin 97 displays those characters using MingLiU and other Unicode fonts. An example is (1), where the vernacular character for 'that'-- consisting of the 'mouth' radical and the general classifier (ge4 in Mandarin) -- appears in the two sentences, I know that person. and I want that one.
- RichWin 97 and go2 'that' in Cantonese. (65k)
The older look of RichWin 97 is used in the display for greater visibility. The pull-down menu showing the input methods available is also displayed, with Cangjie input method selected (i.e., chosen), and the Pinyin input method highlighted, for reasons to be explained later.
The results contrast with what happens when RichWin 2000 is used. Using exactly the same file and making the same selection of Big5 code and Cangjie input method in MS Word 2000 running under English Windows 2000, the vernacular character, go 'that', does not show up using RichWin 2000, as shown in (2)!
- RichWin 2000 and go2 'that' in Cantonese. (88k)
The "Register RichWin 2000" is included to show which version of RichWin is used.
So, it seems that newer is not always better! (But as noted in my 06/21/00 update below, the choice of fonts turns out to also be relevant.) Crucially, even though the extended Big5 characters are there in the Unicode font (e.g., MingLiU and other Unicode fonts, including (Xin) Xi Mingti used in Chinese Windows), they are not necessarily automatically displayed using RichWin 2000.On a related issue concerning input methods, note that the different versions of RichWin do not provide the same options for input methods. Most noticeably, the Pinyin input method that is available in RichWin 97 -- as displayed in (1) above -- is no longer available in the newer version, RichWin 2000, when one selects Big5, as shown in (3):
- RichWin 2000 and go2 'that' in Cantonese - with input methods displayed. (82k)
Note that RichWin 2000 is not alone in being unable to display the Cantonese vernacular characters in that test file. The same is true for other Chinese systems, as illustrated in (4) using NJStar Communicator 2.2:
The above reports some findings conducted on 20 June 2000 on differences between RichWin 97 and RichWin 2000 in their ability to display the Cantonese vernacular characters. In the process, other side observations are made here, including differences in availability of input methods in the two versions of RichWin.
UPDATE ON 21 JUNE 2000: After a bit of further exploration using some of the Unicode fonts that had been installed in my hard disk, it turns out that font selection affects whether or not the Cantonese vernacular characters would be displayed using RichWin 2000. One -- and only one -- of the Unicode fonts currently installed on my computer is able to display the vernacular Cantonese characters, and that is the FZNew XiuLi-Z11 (13MB) font. (Don't quite know which program had installed it -- perhaps RichWin 2000?) Once the FZNew XiuLi-Z11 font has been selected, other Chinese systems, such as NJStar Communicator 2.2 and KEY 2.0, are also able to display the Cantonese vernacular characters. In fact, with the FZNew XiuLi-Z11 font selected in that test file in MS Word 2000 (or the older, Unicode-compliant MS Word 97, and running under English Windows 98), NO external (encoder/)decoder is needed!
So, the good news -- even if some characters that are in the extended Big5 character set in a file does not display when you view it initially (as it may have been created by someone else), some other Unicode font in your computer might be able to!**
UPDATE ON 31 July 2000: In some cases, the selection of the FZNew XiuLi-Z11 font doesn't help. For example, the Cangjie input method works using RichWin 97 to access the vernacular Cantonese character, 'elevator'***, whether one uses MingLiU, MS Song, FZNew XiuLi-Z11, or some other Unicode-based font. That is not true for NJStar Communicator 2.2, even though both have Cangjie as one of the input methods. NJStar Communicator 2.2 cannot display the Cantonese vernacular character for 'elevator' using MingLiU font, or some other Unicode-based font, whereas RichWin97 can:
So, the bottom line is, for someone using English Windows 98 (or higher) who need Cantonese vernacular characters, don't uninstall RichWin 97 yet! ... And plan to learn the Cangjie input method!
NOTES:
* This is information originally provided by my former advisee, Roxane Suk Yee Fung, who had input the Cantonese vernacular characters into her doctoral dissertation (completed at the Ohio State University in June 2000). The test file used here in (1) through (4) is a page in the draft of the dissertation. The later test file used for (5) combines examples from two different places in that same original file. Since I personally do not know how to input using Cangjie (although now I have strong incentive to learn it!), here, I have simply used a file from Roxane's disseration draft for experimentation (with grateful acknowledgement!).
** Alternatively, avoid the display problem altogether by sharing files created using Unicode-compliant Acrobat 4.x *and* with all the characters from fonts that are needed in a given PDF file embedded in that file, for example. [Wording revised 08/02/00] That would enable display, printout, and full-search capability using Adobe's cross-platform freeware, Acrobat Reader 4.x.
*** The choice of checking on that particular vernacular Cantonese character stemmed from an inquiry by Thomas Chan. And Roxane Fung provided the sequence of strokes in Cangjie for me to use to access that character. Thanks to both!
This webpage was created by Marjorie Chan on 20 June 2000 as an extension
of Chinese 694 (Spring 2000).
Last update: 07/31/00.
Copyright © 2000 Marjorie K.M. Chan.