[sword-devel] Japanese ruby text - is this also an option for Chinese?

[Peter von Kaehne]

On 18/03/11 01:20, Matthew Patenaude wrote:

> To be clear, it seems as though the idea is to enable a ruby on/off
> toggle for the Japanese module. As this is really talking about Chinese
> characters within Japanese syllabary text (correct?),

Yes, correct, more or less.

> would this not
> also be possible for complete Chinese text? This would be great for
> those who want pinyin Chinese text. A straight pinyin Chinese module
> would be worthless in the long run (IMHO) as it keeps someone who is
> studying from ever reaching a real level of skill in the language. This
> however, would be great for learners, as they could just hit the toggle
> and read the text with the pinyin above for a guide, then toggle off and
> try to read the text again without the crutches - er, help, I mean. :) 

yes that should be possible with Ruby.

> Of course, the time and work it would take to put all of that into the
> Chinese module is another issue...

That indeed is the crux of the problem. Having said this - I guess that
for most Chinese signs the transliterations are known and described -
even if they are manifold - and that should in turn make the matter
scriptable - more or less:

You assign to each Chinese character the variety of transliterations -
then run the equivalent pinyin text across it and use this to assign the
pinyin to the characters. I would think the majority should become
automatic.

Peter