[KS] The Mystery of the Breve

Larry Gillick gillick at gmail.com
Sun Sep 13 19:10:35 EDT 2009


What e-mail client are you using?  I've been using Mail.app and (with  
the exception of your e-mail) I've been getting all the breves today,  
just fine.

Larry
---
Larry Gillick
Assistant Professor
Digital and Broadcast Media
/ Arts Communication
Shenandoah University
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On Sep 13, 2009, at 5:43 PM, Michael Rank wrote:

> Not being a professional Koreanist (far from it!) I don't want to  
> risk my life in the War of the Breves but may I point out that all  
> the letters with breves have come out as question marks ? on my  
> computer - a Mac - and I believe Frank Hoffmann uses a Mac too!
>
> Michael (keeping head well under parapet...)
>
>
>> Message: 5
>> Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2009 16:39:44 -0400
>> From: Frank Hoffmann <hoffmann at koreaweb.ws>
>> Subject: Re: [KS] The Mystery of the Breve
>> To: koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws
>> Message-ID: <20090913163944.zgyrr8x3r4c0wwos at koreaweb.ws>
>> Content-Type: text/plain;	charset=UTF-8;	DelSp="Yes";	format="flowed"
>>
>> Dear Brother Anthony, and others:
>>
>> Sorry to be so direct, but I feel that THIS should really not anymore
>> be one of the points to be discussed on the
>> transcription/transliteration issue.
>>
>> It was done before, but here again the technical basics:
>>
>> (a) First, the problems listed (mostly limited for non-informed  
>> users)
>> will go away within the next couple of years, as soon as old and
>> outdated software and older computers have been replaced by newer
>> script/program versions (of message boards, email software, etc.) and
>> operating systems (such as Mac OS X or Windows XP and later). Of
>> course, when to replace or update outdated hard- and software is an
>> individual choice.
>>
>> (b) As was pointed out on this list before (by myself and others),  
>> the
>> "new" (that is 1990s) Unicode fonts that are now standard for Windows
>> (starting, I believe, with Windows 2000 or XP, and with Mac OS 9) all
>> include br?ves as well as Hanja, Han'g?l, Hiragana, Arabic, Hebrew,
>> Tibetan, Bengali, and the alphabets and scripts of many other world
>> languages. Just look it up in the Wikipedia:
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode or visit the Unicode home page:
>> http://unicode.org
>> ... QUOTE: "Unicode consists of a repertoire of more than 100,000  
>> characters"
>> All these characters are in each of the standard new fonts you use --
>> say Arial, Times, Palatino, or Courier. However, all of us have most
>> likely still other older pre-Unicode fonts installed on our  
>> computers,
>> and only if you now reformat some text you got from someone else  
>> using
>> an Unicode font (or reverse), only then will you run into trouble.
>>
>> (c) You stated that in a Mac environment it is especially difficult  
>> to
>> type the br?ves. Well, it is not. With an US-English keyboard layout
>> (you can freely choose the keyboard layout in the Mac preferences)
>> this is what you type (might vary according to chosen keyboard  
>> layout):
>>
>> McCune-R :
>>   ? --> ALT + b, then o
>>   ? --> ALT + b, then SHIFT + o
>>   ? --> ALT + b, then u
>>   ? --> ALT + b, then SHIFT + u
>>
>> Hepburn:
>>   ? --> ALT + a, then o
>>   ? --> ALT + a, then SHIFT + o
>>   ? --> ALT + a, then u
>>   ? --> ALT + a, then SHIFT +
>>
>>
>> (d) Web pages using br?ves (or any other characters present in  
>> Unicode
>> fonts, such as Han'g?l or Chinese Characters): all that the web
>> designer needs to do to make this work for ALL newer web browsers
>> under any OS is to use UTF-8 encoding -- this is done by inserting
>> this line in the header:
>> "charset=UTF-8" (instead of, for example, "charset=iso-8859-1" for
>> standard older Latin encoding). The problem that Mac users sometimes
>> have is that websites in Korean language are often encoded in  
>> national
>> Korean codes (a problem you see with many Han'g?l sites), not using
>> Unicode character sets either but Windows-only fonts -- and THIS is
>> rather a problem created by the 'ignorance' of the makers of these
>> websites, one that will for sure also disappear rather sooner than
>> later. The latest version of the Mac Safari browser, by the way,  
>> deals
>> quite well with most of these strange setups (not so Firefox).
>>
>>
>> Best wishes,
>> Frank
>>
>>
>> ========= q u o t e =========
>> (...)
>> In addition, we know that any email, blog, or web page into which we
>> have inserted such a special character will more often than not (more
>> than 50% of the time,  I am told) fail to work when viewed on another
>> computer, even using the same browser; the special characters will
>> usually be seen as ? or as some kind of blob. Moreover, the text of a
>> 500-page book composed on a PC using (say) MSWord, into which we have
>> carefully inserted breved characters as above, once it has been sent
>> to the editor or printer (not only in the US) will usually be
>> transported into a Mac environment. Each breved character, to say
>> nothing of apostrophes and the dashes if not hyphens, disappears and
>> someone has to go through the entire text, looking at a printout of
>> the original,  re-inserting the breved characters etc (which is said
>> to be especially tricky on a Mac, I don't know). It is also not
>> possible to use the MSWord 'search and replace' function to introduce
>> as 'replace' a word with a breved letter.
>>
>> So my question is: in the light of this set of problems with breved
>> letters, which are with us every day and will not be going away any
>> time soon, (...)
>>
>> =============================
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 6
>> Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2009 16:59:16 -0400
>> From: Javier Cha <javiercha at gmail.com>
>> Subject: Re: [KS] The Mystery of the Breve
>> To: Korean Studies Discussion List <koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws>
>> Message-ID:
>> 	<dffd4c960909131359t7ee5a4c0x4071d99501d9d72f at mail.gmail.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>>
>> Just to add to the discussion of typing breved (is that a word?)
>> vowels in Windows:
>>
>> Microsoft Word (the Windows editions) allows direct input of unicode
>> characters through conversion from the hexadecimal number to which  
>> the
>> character is mapped. It is a trick that has served me well for many
>> years now.
>>
>> The hex numbers for the vowels with breve in the MR system are:
>>
>> ? --> 014f
>> ? --> 014e
>> ? --> 016d
>> ? --> 016c
>>
>> To try this, open Microsoft Word; type 014f and press Alt+X. Word  
>> will
>> convert the hex code into the corresponding unicode character, ?.
>>
>> Unfortunately this function is not implemented in other Windows
>> applications. Maybe there are third party tools that allow this kind
>> of input but I haven't researched yet. If you use the full version of
>> Outlook (not Outlook Express or Windows Mail) you can enable Word as
>> the email editor and use this feature.
>>
>> Javier
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 4:39 PM, Frank Hoffmann  
>> <hoffmann at koreaweb.ws> wrote:
>>> Dear Brother Anthony, and others:
>>>
>>> Sorry to be so direct, but I feel that THIS should really not  
>>> anymore be one
>>> of the points to be discussed on the transcription/transliteration  
>>> issue.
>>>
>>> It was done before, but here again the technical basics:
>>>
>>> (a) First, the problems listed (mostly limited for non-informed  
>>> users) will
>>> go away within the next couple of years, as soon as old and outdated
>>> software and older computers have been replaced by newer script/ 
>>> program
>>> versions (of message boards, email software, etc.) and operating  
>>> systems
>>> (such as Mac OS X or Windows XP and later). Of course, when to  
>>> replace or
>>> update outdated hard- and software is an individual choice.
>>>
>>> (b) As was pointed out on this list before (by myself and others),  
>>> the "new"
>>> (that is 1990s) Unicode fonts that are now standard for Windows  
>>> (starting, I
>>> believe, with Windows 2000 or XP, and with Mac OS 9) all include  
>>> br?ves as
>>> well as Hanja, Han'g?l, Hiragana, Arabic, Hebrew, Tibetan,  
>>> Bengali, and the
>>> alphabets and scripts of many other world languages. Just look it  
>>> up in the
>>> Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode or visit the  
>>> Unicode home
>>> page: http://unicode.org
>>> ... QUOTE: "Unicode consists of a repertoire of more than 100,000
>>> characters"
>>> All these characters are in each of the standard new fonts you use  
>>> -- say
>>> Arial, Times, Palatino, or Courier. However, all of us have most  
>>> likely
>>> still other older pre-Unicode fonts installed on our computers,  
>>> and only if
>>> you now reformat some text you got from someone else using an  
>>> Unicode font
>>> (or reverse), only then will you run into trouble.
>>>
>>> (c) You stated that in a Mac environment it is especially  
>>> difficult to type
>>> the br?ves. Well, it is not. With an US-English keyboard layout  
>>> (you can
>>> freely choose the keyboard layout in the Mac preferences) this is  
>>> what you
>>> type (might vary according to chosen keyboard layout):
>>>
>>> McCune-R :
>>> ?? --> ALT + b, then o
>>> ?? --> ALT + b, then SHIFT + o
>>> ?? --> ALT + b, then u
>>> ?? --> ALT + b, then SHIFT + u
>>>
>>> Hepburn:
>>> ?? --> ALT + a, then o
>>> ?? --> ALT + a, then SHIFT + o
>>> ?? --> ALT + a, then u
>>> ?? --> ALT + a, then SHIFT +
>>>
>>>
>>> (d) Web pages using br?ves (or any other characters present in  
>>> Unicode
>>> fonts, such as Han'g?l or Chinese Characters): all that the web  
>>> designer
>>> needs to do to make this work for ALL newer web browsers under any  
>>> OS is to
>>> use UTF-8 encoding -- this is done by inserting this line in the  
>>> header:
>>> "charset=UTF-8" (instead of, for example, "charset=iso-8859-1" for  
>>> standard
>>> older Latin encoding). The problem that Mac users sometimes have  
>>> is that
>>> websites in Korean language are often encoded in national Korean  
>>> codes (a
>>> problem you see with many Han'g?l sites), not using Unicode  
>>> character sets
>>> either but Windows-only fonts -- and THIS is rather a problem  
>>> created by the
>>> 'ignorance' of the makers of these websites, one that will for  
>>> sure also
>>> disappear rather sooner than later. The latest version of the Mac  
>>> Safari
>>> browser, by the way, deals quite well with most of these strange  
>>> setups (not
>>> so Firefox).
>>>
>>>
>>> Best wishes,
>>> Frank
>>>
>>>
>>> ========= q u o t e =========
>>> (...)
>>> In addition, we know that any email, blog, or web page into which  
>>> we have
>>> inserted such a special character will more often than not (more  
>>> than 50% of
>>> the time, ?I am told) fail to work when viewed on another  
>>> computer, even
>>> using the same browser; the special characters will usually be  
>>> seen as ? or
>>> as some kind of blob. Moreover, the text of a 500-page book  
>>> composed on a PC
>>> using (say) MSWord, into which we have carefully inserted breved  
>>> characters
>>> as above, once it has been sent to the editor or printer (not only  
>>> in the
>>> US) will usually be transported into a Mac environment. Each breved
>>> character, to say nothing of apostrophes and the dashes if not  
>>> hyphens,
>>> disappears and someone has to go through the entire text, looking  
>>> at a
>>> printout of the original, ?re-inserting the breved characters etc  
>>> (which is
>>> said to be especially tricky on a Mac, I don't know). It is also not
>>> possible to use the MSWord 'search and replace' function to  
>>> introduce as
>>> 'replace' a word with a breved letter.
>>>
>>> So my question is: in the light of this set of problems with  
>>> breved letters,
>>> which are with us every day and will not be going away any time  
>>> soon, (...)
>>>
>>> =============================
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> End of Koreanstudies Digest, Vol 75, Issue 14
>> *********************************************
>>
>
>

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