> >> From: michael.w.martin1@kodak.com [mailto:michael.w.martin1@kodak.com]
> >> Sent: Monday, July 17, 2000 9:40 AM
> >>
> >>
> >> For a device that will print a relatively basic label (such
> >> as sequence
> >> number, date, time, name, department, etc) onto a document in
> >> Japanese --
> >> what is your consensus? Basic Kanji+Hiragana+Katakana.... or will
> >> Hiragana+Katakana or just Katakana suffice?
> >>
> > Mike Ayers added:
> >
> > I ran this question past my Japanese teacher, who is Japanese by
> >birth. Her opinion is that full Kanji support would be needed. It seems
> >that names are not necessarily constrained to a limited set of Kanji,
> even
> >though the Japanese government publishes a list just for that purpose.
> >Japanese people apparently *really* don't like to see their names in any
> >form other than Kanji, and if there were any competing product that used
> >Kanji (and yours didn't), you probably wouldn't sell any. I suspect the
> >suggestion voiced earlier to use the shift-JIS subset may be your best
> bet.
> >In any event, you should probably consider Kanji a must and design
> >accordingly.
> >
> >/|/|ike
>
> My 15 years of designing and selling labal printers into global
> markets exactly supports Mikes's comments.
>
> Katakana is used only for spelling FOREIGN words; Hiragana
> would be used for Japanese words and as part of mixed-Kanji
> /Hiragana Japanese expressions. Young children first learn
> Hiragana as a way of writing *before* they learn Kanji, but we
> Westerners must accept the fact that written Japanese uses
> funadmentally ideographic rather a phonetic written expression.
>
> Also, people in any culture don't like to see their names
> "misspelled". Using Hiragana rather Kanji for an accepted
> ideographic name character would be viewed as a misspelling.
> To my experience, using Katakana for an accepted Japanese
> name would be viewed as ignorant or childish if done by a
> Westerner and insulting if done by a Japanese.
>
> Clive
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