From: John Jenkins (jenkins@apple.com)
Date: Sat Jan 10 2004 - 14:13:11 EST
Personally, I think it's an excellent idea. It'd be good to get it on
the UTC agenda for next month, so if you could start on the form. I
can give you any help you need.
On Jan 10, 2004, at 5:23 AM, Christopher Cullen wrote:
> I am an academic with research interests in the history of ancient
> Chinese mathematics, and I should like to propose the encoding of
> traditional Chinese rod numerals.
>
> These represent the arrays of "counting rods" on a counting board as
> used in China for complex calculations before the invention of the
> abacus. There are eighteen forms in all, representing the numerals
> one to nine in two forms which are basically versions of each other
> with a 90 degrees rotation. One form is used for units, the the other
> for tens, then back to the first form for hundreds, and so on. A zero
> is represented by a gap in the array. For pictures of these and an
> explanatory text, see:
>
> http://www.math.sfu.ca/histmath/China/Beginning/Rod.html
>
> These forms appear in pre-modern mathematical books in China, and in
> modern books discussing ancient mathematics. They are not to be
> confused with the the related "Hangzhou numerals", which are already
> encoded at 3021-303a. It would be a great convenience to have these
> as a standard resource rather than having to create a special private
> font in order to represent them.
>
> From a private source, I have been told that these forms are neither
> in any current Unicode encoding initiative, nor indeed anywhere in the
> proposal pipeline. I should therefore be grateful for any comments or
> advice that might guide me towards making a formal submission.
>
>
> Christopher Cullen
>
>
>
========
John H. Jenkins
jenkins@apple.com
jhjenkins@mac.com
http://homepage..mac.com/jhjenkins/
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