Data processing: speech signal processing – linguistics – language – Linguistics
Reexamination Certificate
1999-07-20
2001-09-18
Edouard, Patrick N. (Department: 2644)
Data processing: speech signal processing, linguistics, language
Linguistics
C704S001000, C707S793000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06292768
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE PRESENT INVENTION
The present invention relates to written non-phonetic characters of oriental languages, such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean language, Indian language, and etc., and more particularly to a conversion method of creating new surrogate words to precisely represent such non-phonetic characters used in written oriental languages, in which the surrogate words are words created with either English-style or native alphabets in the present invention to represent non-phonetic characters used in the Chinese, Japanese and Korean languages. Therefore, the non-phonetic characters can be easily inputted into in a computer through an English-style or native alphabetic keyboard, a mouse or other phonetic inputting method. Moreover, such new surrogate words can be stored in a computer and precisely transmitted by E-mail (Electronic Mail).
Non-phonetic characters of Chinese languages were derived from pictures by the ancient Chinese to express themselves thousands of years ago. These characters have gone through many changes over their long history, from pictures of the subjects they described in the ancient times to the uniformly square shapes of today. The Koreans and the Japanese adopted and incorporated the Chinese characters into their languages, although they do not necessarily pronounce or use all the characters the same way as the Chinese do. The majority of the characters used by these two peoples have the same or similar meaning as they do in the Chinese language. Nowadays, most of the characters are consisted of two parts, i.e. one denotes the meaning, usually referred to as the pictogram when this part resembles something, or referred to as the ideogram when this part bears some of the meaning of the character. The other denotes the pronunciation, usually referred to as phonetic radical. In Chinese language, the pronunciation of a character is monosyllabic, meaning one sound for each character.
The ideogram is a symbol that can be either a character or part of a character, which denotes the meaning of that character by inference. Pare ideograms are rare. However they can be found in many characters that do not have phonetic radicals but instead, have two or more pictograms combined to infer a meaning that can be understood by the readers. The pronunciation of this kind of characters must be memorized, since there are no phonetic radicals present in this kind of characters. When the ideogram is used as a radical of a character, it is silent. The following are some examples of the ideogram.
(1)
is made of the sun,
, and the moon,
, therefore it means bright. (2)
is consisted of abundant,
and color,
, therefore it means strikingly beautiful. (3)
is the combination of a son,
and a daughter,
, hence it means good. (4)
is made of combination of silk,
and small squares of rice field,
, therefore it means tiny and fine. (5)
is made of two trees,
, therefore it means woods.
The pictogram is a symbol that is either a character or part of a character, which is the approximate likeness of an object the character described. The pictograms are more common than the ideograms since the Chinese characters evolved from pictures. When the pictogram is used as a part of a character, it is silent. For example,
for bird,
for horse, and
for wood or tree.
A pictogram not only bears the meaning of the character of which it is a part but also expresses the meaning by showing the physical likeness of the object the character described. This affords the character to be easily recognized and understood.
The radical is a part of a character. There are usually two kinds of radicals in a character. One denotes the meaning and the other denotes the pronunciation of the character. The former is known as a pictogram or ideogram depending on its shape or what it stands for. If the shape resembles an object, it is called pictogram. If it does not resemble anything but has a meaning derived from other uses, or from inference, it is called ideogram. They remain silent when the character is pronounced. Another kind of radical is known as a phonetic radical that bears the actual or approximate pronunciation of the character, hence it is sounded.
Sometimes, a character can be used as a radical, such as (1)
in
. (2)
in
. This kind of radicals are mostly used as phonetic radicals. Very often, a radical can be used as a character, such as
.
Another unique feature in colloquial Chinese language is that it allows four ways to pronounce a given phonetic, i.e. four intonations. The total combinations of pronunciations and intonations in Chinese language are about 1,544. This compares to about 13,200 commonly used characters. Theoretically speaking, each pronunciation/intonation combination represents about 8 to 9 characters. In reality, a lot of pronunciation/intonation combinations are not adequately used or not used at all. Furthermore, the Chinese people seem to over-use some of the combinations, such as ji, qi and xi. Such uneven usage causes certain combinations to represent more than 50 characters. The applicant calls this phenomenon over representation, a problem that renders oriental languages (including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Indian languages) very difficult to be computerized in their original forms.
For example, there are 99 Chinese characters, such as
, z,
23
,
,
,
, etc., having the same pronunciation/intonation combination of ji. There are 69 Chinese characters, such as
etc., having the same pronunciation/intonation combination of qi. There are 67 Chinese characters, such as
etc., having the same pronunciation/intonation combination of xi.
Currently, the oriental languages, such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean language, and Indian language, use thousands of characters which is in contract to the English language's 26 alphabets, therefore the computerization of such oriental languages is a substantial problem. Obviously, it is absolutely impractical to have a typewriter keyboard consisting of thousands of keys. Thus, the input of the oriental characters into the computers or word processors becomes an extremely hard task.
Generally speaking, there are two major systems of computer inputting method for the oriental languages, i.e. the “shape” system and the “phonetic” system. The “shape” system, such as the “CHANGJEI” or “DA YI” input system for Chinese, designates a plurality of shape symbols according to the shapes of the radicals of the characters, in which each combination of the shape symbols represents an unique characters. The drawback of the “shape” system is really difficult to learn and use. The users have to study the specific way of how to divide each character into predetermined shape symbols and learn by heart thousands of shape symbols representing different characters. Although the shape system enables the user to precisely input the specific character into the computer or word processor, only a tiny portion of skilled people such as the professional typists who received special, and intensive training can utilize such “shape” system. Ordinary people are unable to input even one character by utilizing the “shape” system. Besides, the learning process of the “shape” system is so complicated that most business people are unable to spend so much time to learn by heart all the input codes of the “shape” system. In other words, the “shape” system is designed for those people whose career are computer data typists only. Furthermore, the “shape” system inputs and stores each character by 2 bites. However, during electronic transmission, such as E-mail, the transmitting unit is single byte only, so that any information or data inputted by the “shape” system is unable to E-mail through Internet. In other words, those oriental people whose written language is not a phonetic one such as English have little or no chance to enjoy the convenience of E-mail and Internet.
The “phonetic” system, such as the “PIN YIN” or “ZHUYIN” input system for Chinese, as shown in
FIG. 1
, enables the user to input the pronunciation of
Chan Raymond Y.
David and Raymond Patent Group
Edouard Patrick N.
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