Genji-mon

[y.kohmoto]

    On 24 Oct 2003, Antti Karttunen wroto ;

>On Sun, 7 Sep 2003, y.kohmoto wrote:
>
>> Date: Sun, 7 Sep 2003 14:47:31 +0900
>> From: y.kohmoto <zbi74583 at boat.zero.ad.jp>
>> To: seqfan at ext.jussieu.fr
>> Subject: Genji-mon
>>
>>     I think that it is a good idea to add various interesting characters
>> like Genji-Mon and Klingon    etc on Unicode .
>>     But before that, they say kanji users in far east countries don't
like
>> Unicode because it doesn't distinguish the differences between Japanese
>> kanji and Chinese kanji and Korean kanji.
>>     It is      inconvenient for people in these countries.
>>     And also the number of all characters in Unicode = 2^16 is too few to
>> represent all kanjis.
>
>But certainly Unicode contains all the Kanji you have in
>Japanese JIS-standard, so I don't see it to be a worse
>alternative to it, except because of the natural technological
>inertia (that is,  the installed based of JIS and other old standards
>is so large.)?
>

    Yes, but JIS is for Japanese.
    If only Japanese people use Unicode, then there is no problem.
    But it is an international standard. Indeed our point of view, different
Kanjis have the same code.
    Denote a Japanese Kanji X, and the corresponding Chinese Kanji X', and
the corresponding  Koren Kanji X''. So, X, X', X'' have the same code
number.
    There are both cases that X, X', and X'' are the same and they are
different each other.
    In the later case, we should use Unicode with a declaration "this
sentence is in Japanese", it is not so convenient.
    "our point of view" means that, even if we say "they are different", you
will say " they are the same", because the difference is so small.

>
>>     Ordinarily Asian people uses about ten thousand kanjis, and the
>> researchers of literature use a hundred thousand kanjis.
>>     It is believed that several hundred thousand kanjis exist.
>>     So, I think three bytes code is enough for kanji.
>
>Yes, but Unicode allows also 32-bit codes, and indeed many lesser used
>historic scripts are now placed there (over code point 65535).
>


    I have thought that Unicode is 16-bit codes, if it allows 32-bit then it
is enough.
    A popular Kanji dictionary "Dai Ji Rin" contains 200000 Kanjis.

>
>>     When I knew the figures of Genji-koh, I wondered how about the cases
of
>> n=3,4,6,....?
>>     Fortunately, Hirokazu Kunii explained about it in the page " this
>> month's incense ", June, on his home page.
>>     He said he had prepared it before my mail asking about Genji-koh.
>>     I am lucky
>>
>>     A quote from his page :
>>     >In Takebe's "A secret book of incense-Tao", 1669, there are
>> descriptions about the cases of
>>     >n=3,4,5,6,7,8,9.
>>     >The case of n=3 is called " Santyu-koh ".
>>     >The case of n=4 is called " Keizu -koh".
>>
>>     15 figures for Bell(4) are on this page :
>>     http://plaza27.mbn.or.jp/~921/monthly/monthly6/monthly6.html
>>
>>     It is necessary to know the numbers of partition  for playing
>> "Keizu-koh".
>>     So, Japanese people knew Bell numbers up to 9 in sixteen century.
>
>If I prepare a some kind of predraft (to be completed say by
>Everson Gunn Teoranta, an Irishman who has prepared
>a lots of drafts for historic scripts (and also for misfortunate
>Klingon!, see his pages at http://www.egt.ie/ and http://www.evertype.com/
>)
>for the Genji-koh symbols, then it would be a good to have a Japanese
>authority which could give the exact names of the Wasan mathematicians
>(and approximate dates) that were involved in the study of Genji-koh.
>
>These symbols, if ever admitted to Unicode, might then have some very
>modern mathematical usages!
>


    I think that the origin of Genji-koh exists in the ceremony of incense,
not in Wasan.

>>
>>     How to play Genji - koh :
>>     Prepare five packages for each five kind of incense.  So, twenty five
>> packages exist.
>>     Select randomly five packages from these twenty five packages.
>>     Smell them one after another and answer one from all Genji koh's
figures
>> which represent which package have the same incense.
>
>Do you light the incense sticks, or just smell them unlighted?
>


    I have not tried Genji koh yet, but I suppose that they don't light
them.

>>
>>
>>
>
>Terveisin,
>
>Antti
>

    Yasutoshi