How many hieroglyphs in the Chinese language can not even be counted by the inhabitants of the Celestial Empire. Unlike many countries in the world, China does not have a unified alphabet. therefore, each province not only speaks its own dialect. but also use their own hieroglyphs. Agree, it is difficult with this approach to imagine a computer keyboard …
For many years, China could not implement printed writing precisely because of the abundance of hieroglyphs. The idea of a compact input of Chinese characters decomposed into component parts was proposed by the philologist Lin Yutang from China in the middle of the last century. Hieroglyphs in the language differ in the same lines, which are called graphemes. In total, there are 250 such graphemes in the Chinese language, and this already suggests that, although with difficulty, they can fit on a standard keyboard.
To minimize the keys on the keyboard, it was decided to equip each one not with two or three functions, as, for example, in Russian or American, but with eight, i.e. the keyboard key contains about eight graphemes.
Typing is catastrophically difficult: the Chinese use two methods of typing hieroglyphs - phonetic input and graphic input.
Graphical input
To type according to the second method, the Chinese use a standard keyboard, combining graphemes so that hieroglyphs are obtained, while in order to enter the desired one, sometimes it is necessary to switch registers up to 7 times.
However, keyboards are more and more improved. So, the Chinese noticed that there are 24 most frequently used hieroglyphs in the language. Accordingly, their input can be performed with just one button press. Pressing the same button two or three times, the rest of the slightly less common hieroglyphs appear on the screen.
Phonetic input
As for the phonetic input method, it differs in no less complexity from the previous method. When you enter a hieroglyph, not its symbol appears, but a graphic analogue of transcription - pronunciation - the smart system tries to give the user the correct hieroglyph. This method is similar to the well-known T9. But the Chinese language contains a huge number of hieroglyphs that are similar in phonetic pronunciation. Therefore, you have to look for the necessary symbol yourself.
Both types of keyboards retain the Shift, Enter and other keys familiar to Europeans, however, the top row function keys (F1, F2, etc.) have been abolished in favor of switching registers and entering standardized graphemes.
The digital field is multifunctional. If on European "keyboard" there are only auxiliary options like Home, PgDn, then in Chinese these keys have three graphemes, a special character and one number.
