SERETNY@HARTFORD.BITNET.UUCP (11/18/87)
I apologise for my careless choice of words in my last message, I
had meant to say that the Script Manager could accomodate nearly any WRITING
system. Being a student of languages (natural and computer), the pictographic
nature of Chinese is obvious. It will be interesting to ponder, however, how
long it will be before they, like the Japanese, develop/adopt an alphabetic
system to more easily embrace computing and the information age.
Since fonts can be any size (up to 127 points, I believe), you should
have no problem transliterating them. You could assign "root words" to
different families, and families could consist of all the words derived from
that root. This is probably not too practical a solution, as a lot of
programming-type things need to be looked into, but as far a general computer
system goes, the Macintosh will probably be your best bet. Incidentally, a
new graphics program entitled MacCalligraphy enables you to use the same
kind of brushes and strokes as those needed for Oriental characters; it is
quite flexible, allowing you to change the absorption quality of the paper,
and the mixture of your ink.
Robert M. Seretny
(SERETNY@HARTFORD.bitnet)