Several input methods allow the use of Chinese characters with computers. Most allow selection of characters based either on their pronunciation or their graphical shape. Phonetic input methods are easier to learn but are less efficient,while graphical methods allow faster input,but have a steep learning curve.
Kanji are the logographic Chinese characters adapted from the Chinese script used in the writing of Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are still used,along with the subsequently-derived syllabic scripts of hiragana and katakana. The characters have Japanese pronunciations;most have two,with one based on the Chinese sound. A few characters were invented in Japan by constructing character components derived from other Chinese characters. After the Meiji Restoration,Japan made its own efforts to simplify the characters,now known as shinjitai,by a process similar to China's simplification efforts,with the intention to increase literacy among the common folk. Since the 1920s,the Japanese government has published character lists periodically to help direct the education of its citizenry through the myriad Chinese characters that exist. There are nearly 3,000 kanji used in Japanese names and in common communication.
Penmanship is the technique of writing with the hand using a writing instrument. Today,this is most commonly done with a pen,or pencil,but throughout history has included many different implements. The various generic and formal historical styles of writing are called "hands" while an individual's style of penmanship is referred to as "handwriting".
In a written language,a logogram,also logograph or lexigraph,is a written character that represents a semantic component of a language,such as a word or morpheme. Chinese characters as used in Chinese as well as other languages are logograms,as are Egyptian hieroglyphs and characters in cuneiform script. A writing system that primarily uses logograms is called a logography. Non-logographic writing systems,such as alphabets and syllabaries,are phonemic:their individual symbols represent sounds directly and lack any inherent meaning. However,all known logographies have some phonetic component,generally based on the rebus principle,and the addition of a phonetic component to pure ideographs is considered to be a key innovation in enabling the writing system to adequately encode human language.
Chinese characters are logographs used to write the Chinese languages and others from regions historically influenced by Chinese culture. Chinese characters have a documented history spanning over three millennia,representing one of the four independent inventions of writing accepted by scholars;of these,they comprise the only writing system continuously used since its invention. Over time,the function,style,and means of writing characters have evolved greatly. Unlike letters in alphabets that reflect the sounds of speech,Chinese characters generally represent morphemes,the units of meaning in a language. Writing a language's entire vocabulary requires thousands of different characters. Characters are created according to several different principles,where aspects of both shape and pronunciation may be used to indicate the character's meaning.
Handwriting recognition (HWR),also known as handwritten text recognition (HTR),is the ability of a computer to receive and interpret intelligible handwritten input from sources such as paper documents,photographs,touch-screens and other devices. The image of the written text may be sensed "off line" from a piece of paper by optical scanning or intelligent word recognition. Alternatively,the movements of the pen tip may be sensed "on line",for example by a pen-based computer screen surface,a generally easier task as there are more clues available. A handwriting recognition system handles formatting,performs correct segmentation into characters,and finds the most possible words.
In relation to the Japanese language and computers many adaptation issues arise,some unique to Japanese and others common to languages which have a very large number of characters. The number of characters needed in order to write in English is quite small,and thus it is possible to use only one byte (28=256 possible values) to encode each English character. However,the number of characters in Japanese is many more than 256 and thus cannot be encoded using a single byte - Japanese is thus encoded using two or more bytes,in a so-called "double byte" or "multi-byte" encoding. Problems that arise relate to transliteration and romanization,character encoding,and input of Japanese text.
Handwriting is the writing done with a writing instrument,such as a pen or pencil,in the hand. Handwriting includes both block and cursive styles and is separate from formal calligraphy or typeface. Because each person's handwriting is unique and different,it can be used to verify a document's writer. The deterioration of a person's handwriting is also a symptom or result of several different diseases. The inability to produce clear and coherent handwriting is also known as dysgraphia.
Cursive is any style of penmanship in which characters are written joined in a flowing manner,generally for the purpose of making writing faster,in contrast to block letters. It varies in functionality and modern-day usage across languages and regions;being used both publicly in artistic and formal documents as well as in private communication. Formal cursive is generally joined,but casual cursive is a combination of joins and pen lifts. The writing style can be further divided as "looped","italic",or "connected".
The modern Japanese writing system uses a combination of logographic kanji,which are adopted Chinese characters,and syllabic kana. Kana itself consists of a pair of syllabaries:hiragana,used primarily for native or naturalised Japanese words and grammatical elements;and katakana,used primarily for foreign words and names,loanwords,onomatopoeia,scientific names,and sometimes for emphasis. Almost all written Japanese sentences contain a mixture of kanji and kana. Because of this mixture of scripts,in addition to a large inventory of kanji characters,the Japanese writing system is considered to be one of the most complicated currently in use.
Remembering the Kanji is a series of three volumes by James Heisig,intended to teach the 3,000 most frequent Kanji to students of the Japanese language. The series is available in English,French,German,Dutch,Spanish,Polish,Portuguese,Hungarian,Italian,Swedish,and Hebrew. There is a supplementary book,Remembering the Kana,which teaches the Japanese syllabaries. Remembering the Hanzi by the same author is intended to teach the 3,000 most frequent Hanzi to students of the Chinese language. This book has two variants:Remembering Simplified Hanzi and Remembering Traditional Hanzi,each in two volumes.
Semi-cursive script,also known as running script,is a style of Chinese calligraphy that emerged during the Han dynasty. The style is used to write Chinese characters and is abbreviated slightly where a character's strokes are permitted to be visibly connected as the writer writes,but not to the extent of the cursive style. This makes the style easily readable by readers who can read regular script and quickly writable by calligraphers who require ideas to be written down quickly. In order to produce legible work using the semi-cursive style,a series of writing conventions is followed,including the linking of the strokes,simplification and merging strokes,adjustments to stroke order and the distribution of text of the work.
Japanese input methods are used to input Japanese characters on a computer.
OpenVanilla (OV) is a free,open-source text-entry and processing architecture. It includes a collection of popular input methods and text processing filters,serving as a bridge between input methods and the operating system. It was originally designed to offer a better text-entry experience and alternative input methods not found in Apple's built-in set or suit better the needs for Windows "switchers." However,the developers have since worked on a Microsoft Windows port and a bridge between OV and SCIM on the X Window System. The macOS version is compatible with Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther) and Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger). OV's input methods can also be used through SCIM on Linux or FreeBSD. An experimental Win32 Unicode version is also available.
In Japanese language,Ryakuji are colloquial simplifications of kanji.
ATOK is a Japanese input method editor (IME) produced by JustSystems,a Japanese software company.
Chinese characters may have several variant forms—visually distinct glyphs that represent the same underlying meaning and pronunciation. Variants of a given character are allographs of one another,and many are directly analogous to allographs present in the English alphabet,such as the double-storey ⟨a⟩ and single-storey ⟨ɑ⟩ variants of the letter A,with the latter more commonly appearing in handwriting. Some contexts require usage of specific variants.
Radical 113 or radical spirit (示部) meaning ancestor or veneration is number 113 out of the 214 Kangxi radicals. It is one of the 23 radicals composed of 5 strokes. When appearing at the left side of a character,the radical transforms into 礻 in modern Chinese and Japanese jōyōkanji.
Radical 95 or radical profound (玄部) meaning "dark" or "profound" is one of the 23 Kangxi radicals composed of 5 strokes.
The thumb-shift keyboard is a keyboard design for inputting Japanese sentences on word processors and computers. It was invented by Fujitsu in the late 1970s and released in 1980 as a feature of the line of Japanese word processors the company sold,named OASYS,to make Japanese input easier,faster and more natural. It is popular among people who input large quantities of Japanese sentences,such as writers,playwrights,lawyers and so on,because of its ease of use and speed. The rights regarding the use of this design were transferred to Nihongo Nyuuryoku Consortium,a technology sharing cooperative of interested companies,in 1989. It is referred to as an example of keyboard layout in Japanese Industrial Standards.
