Mike Ayers wrote:
> <Doug>
> * reasonably accurate
> * short enough to serve as dialog box labels
> * not too arcane for the intended audience
> </Doug>
>
> I think it is important to note that "gives an
> introduction to East
> Asian languages" is not in there. Some will be confused no
> matter what is put on the dialog box. [...]
Incidentally, I note that people confused by a term such as "Chinese
characters" generally don't speak Chinese, Japanese or Korean. The only
information they need is "this option is not the one you want", and all the
terms we have been proposing do fullfill this need.
However, there also is the case of engineers that, although don't need or
know these languages themselves, need to set up a computer for someone else
to use.
In this case, the term "Chinese characters" may be misleading. If, say, they
were asked to set up a system for *Japanese*, they could conclude that "I
cannot do that because there I only have *Chinese* characters".
In this case, the more obscure term "Han characters" may perhaps make a
better service. When an uninformed person meets it, she feels prompted to
look it up on manuals, help files, etc., to find out that it means the
characters used for Chinese, Japanese and Korean.
BTW, I don't see a problem of political correctness here. The terms used by
Japanese or Korean themselves (kanji and hanja, respectively) litterally
means "Han or Chinese characters". Rather, there is a possible technical
incorrectness, because the term hides the fact that Japanese and Korean also
use their own local phonetic characters.
_ Marco
