Ruby character

Ruby characters are small, annotative glosses that can be placed above or to the right of a Chinese character when writing logographic languages such as Chinese or Japanese to show the pronunciation. Typically called just ruby or rubi, such annotations are usually used as a pronunciation guide for relatively obscure characters.

Examples

Here is an example of Japanese ruby characters (called "furigana") for Tokyo ("]

In Chinese, the practice of providing phonetic cues via ruby is rare, but does occur systematically in grade-school level text books or dictionaries. The Chinese have no special name for this practice, as it is not as widespread as in Japan. In Taiwan, it is known as Zhuyin, from the name of the phonetic system employed for this purpose there. It is virtually always used vertically, because publications are normally in a vertical format, and Zhuyin is not as easy to read when presented horizontally. Where Zhuyin is not used, other Chinese phonetic systems like Hanyu Pinyin are employed.

Ruby characters are not usually used for word-for-word translations between languages, even for identical traditional Chinese characters, since all natural languages include idioms (where combinations of words have a different meaning than the individual words), the relationship of non-adjacent words is often hard to capture, and usually there is no exact and unique translation for a given word. There are also challenges if the original and translated languages have a different direction (e.g., English reads left to right, but Hebrew reads right to left). A common example of this use involves the Christian bible, which was originally written in Koine Greek, Hebrew, and some Aramaic. Only a small percentage of people can read these original languages proficiently. Thus, many publications of the Christian bible in its original languages incorporate ruby text with word-by-word translations to another language, such as English, as an aid. Such documents are often termed interlinear documents (where the emphasis is on providing translated text "between the lines"), and often they also include a separate full translation of the text, rather than only using ruby characters, but, again, there are exceptions.

Ruby annotation can also be used in handwriting.

History

"Ruby" was originally the name of a British 5.5-point font used for annotations in printed documents. In Japanese, rather than referring to the name of a font, the word came to refer to typeset "furigana". When transliterated back into English, the word was rendered in some texts as "rubi" (the typical romanization of the Japanese word _ja. ルビ). However, the spelling "ruby" has become more common since a W3C recommendation for "ruby markup" was published.

In the U.S., it had been called "agate" at least before the 1950s:

Ruby in Unicode

Unicode and its companion standard, the Universal Character Set, support ruby via these "interlinear annotation" characters:
* Code point FFF9 (hex) — Interlinear annotation anchor - marks start of annotated text
* Code point FFFA (hex) — Interlinear annotation separator - marks start of annotating character(s)
* Code point FFFB (hex) — Interlinear annotation terminator - marks end of annotated text

Unicode Technical Report #20 [cite web
author = Martin Dürst, Asmus Freytag
title = Unicode in XML and other Markup Languages
date = 2007-05-16
publisher = W3C and Unicode Consortium
url = http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr20/] clarifies that these characters are not intended to be exposed to users of markup languages and software applications. It suggests that ruby markup be used instead, where appropriate.

Ruby in ANSI

ISO/IEC 6429 (also known as ECMA-48) which defines the ANSI escape codes also provided a mechanism for ruby text for use by text terminals. The PARALLEL TEXTS (PTX) escape code accepted six parameter values giving the following escape sequences for marking ruby text:
* CSI 0 (or simply CSI since 0 is used as the default value for this control) — end of parallel texts
* CSI 1 — beginning of a string of principal parallel text
* CSI 2 — beginning of a string of supplementary parallel text
* CSI 3 — beginning of a string of supplementary Japanese phonetic annotation
* CSI 4 — beginning of a string of supplementary Chinese phonetic annotation
* CSI 5 — end of a string of supplementary phonetic annotations

Ruby markup

In 2001, the W3C published the Ruby Annotation specification for supplementing XHTML with ruby markup. Ruby markup is not a standard part of HTML 4.01 or any of the XHTML 1.0 specifications (XHTML-1.0-Strict, XHTML-1.0-Transitional, and XHTML-1.0-Frameset), but was incorporated into the XHTML 1.1 specification.

Support for ruby markup in web browsers is limited, as XHTML 1.1 is not yet widely implemented. Ruby markup is partially supported by Microsoft Internet Explorer (5.0+) for Windows and Macintosh, but is not supported by Mozilla, Firefox (though see below), Safari/Konqueror or Opera. [cite web
title = Web Specifications supported in Opera
url = http://www.opera.com/docs/specs/
quote = Opera supports XHTML 1.1 with these exceptions: (…) Ruby annotations are not supported
accessdate = 2007-11-05]

For these browsers, Ruby support is most easily added by using CSS rules such as can be found on the web. [ [http://web.nickshanks.com/stylesheets/ruby.css CSS Ruby Support] — Works in all modern browsers]

Ruby markup support can also be added to some browsers that support custom extensions. For example, there is an extension which allows Netscape 7, Mozilla, and Firefox to properly render ruby markup under certain circumstances. This extension is freely available for users of these browsers. [ [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1935 XHTML Ruby Support] Firefox extension]

Ruby markup is structured such that a fallback rendering, consisting of the ruby characters in parentheses immediately after the main text, will appear if the browser does not have support for ruby.

The W3C is also working on a specific ruby module for the upcoming CSS level 3. [cite web
author = Michel Suignard, Marcin Sawicki
title = CSS3 Ruby Module
date = 2003-05-14
work = W3C Candidate Recommendation
publisher = World Wide Web Consortium
accessdate = 2007-11-05
url = http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-ruby/]

Ruby markup examples

Below are a few examples of ruby markup. The markup is shown first, and the rendered markup is shown next. Web browsers will either render it with the correct size and positioning as shown in the table-based examples above, or will use the fallback rendering with the ruby characters in parentheses:

東(とう) 京(きょう)

東(とう) 京(きょう)

北(ㄅㄟˇ) 京(ㄐㄧㄥ)

北(ㄅㄟˇ)京(ㄐㄧㄥ)

Note that Chinese ruby text would normally be displayed in vertical columns to the right of each character. This approach is not typically supported in browsers at present.

This is an example of vertical columns.

_ja. 瓶 _ja. ㄆ ㄧ ㄥ ˊ _ja. 子 _ja. ㄗ Complex ruby markup [ [http://www.w3.org/TR/ruby/#complex Complex ruby markup] ] is also possible in which additional ruby text is placed below the main text, and/or ruby text is associated with the ruby base . It is not supported by most browsers, but there is an extension for Firefox that does support it. ee also *Harakat - vocalised Arabic script serves the same phonetic purpose for reading texts in Arabic. *Niqqud - vocalised Hebrew script serves the same phonetic purpose for reading Hebrew. References External links * [http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-ruby W3C article: What is Ruby?] * [http://www.w3.org/International/tutorials/ruby/ W3C tutorial: Ruby Markup and Styling] * [http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-ruby/ W3C: CSS3 Ruby Module] * [http://yomoyomo.jp/ Add Ruby automatically for Japanese Web site] — Multi-language phonetic reading site that can add phonetic reading to any site or texts in five different alphabets, hiragana, katakana, Roman, hangul, Devanagari and Cyrillic letters for Japanese. Wikimedia Foundation. 2010. Игры ⚽ Поможем решить контрольную работу Ruby Action film Look at other dictionaries: Ruby (disambiguation) — Ruby most commonly refers to: * Ruby, a red gemstone * Ruby (programming language) * Ruby (given name)Ruby may also be:Locations* Ruby, Alaska * Ruby, Arizona * Ruby Mountain, a stratovolcano in British Columbia, Canada * Ruby Mountains, a… …   Wikipedia Ruby (annotation markup) — Ruby is a W3C recommendation markup for inline annotation of text, often to provide pronunciation hints or other annotation above or below the main text. It is especially useful for rendering ruby characters. It is part of XHTML 1.1. See also… …   Wikipedia Ruby (Max and Ruby) — Ruby is a character in Max and Ruby. She is very smart and extremely organized. She is a second grader who loves being in charge and believes she is the perfect bunny to help her little brother Max grow up right. She may be bossy, but she’s… …   Wikipedia Ruby Ferguson — Ruby Ferguson, 1899 1966, nee Rubie Constance Ashby, was a British writer of popular fiction, including children s books, romances, and mysteries. She is best known today for her Jill books, a series of Pullein Thompsonesque pony stories for… …   Wikipedia Ruby (comics) — Ruby, in comics, may refer to:* Ruby, a character in Dark Horse Comics * Ruby Thursday, a Marvel Comics supervillain …   Wikipedia Ruby Romaine — Infobox character color = #CCCCFF name = Tracey Takes On... Characters Ruby Romaine caption = age = 72 death = occupation = Makeup artist disabilities = title = family = spouse = children = Buddy and Desiree relatives = Uncle Skip, Uncle Rosco… …   Wikipedia Ruby Thursday — Superherobox| caption= comic color=background:#ff8080 character name=Ruby Thursday real name=Thursday Rubinstein publisher=Marvel Comics debut= Defenders #32 (February 1976) creators=Steve Gerber Sal Buscema Jim Mooney alliance… …   Wikipedia Ruby Windsor — James Bond Character bgcolor=#039 fgcolor=#fff name=Ruby Windsor / Ruby Bartlett portrayed=Angela Scoular gender=Female affiliation=Ernst Stavro Blofeld status=Unknown role=Bond girlRuby Windsor is a fictional character in Ian Fleming s James… …   Wikipedia Ruby Lin — Infobox Chinese language singer and actor name = Ruby Lin caption = chinesename = 林心如 tradchinesename = simpchinesename = pinyinchinesename = Lín Xīnrú jyutpingchinesename = birthname = ancestry = birthdate = birth date and age|1976|01|27… …   Wikipedia Ruby Gloom — Infobox Television bgcolour = #D6D6FF show name = Ruby Gloom caption = Ruby Gloom title card genre = Goth, Comedy, Animation camera = picture format = audio format = runtime = 23 mins. (approx) creator = developer = Nelvana executive producer =… …   Wikipedia 18+ © Academic, 2000-2024 Contact us: Technical Support, Advertising Dictionaries export, created on PHP, Joomla, Drupal, WordPress, MODx. Mark and share Search through all dictionaries Translate… Search Internet Share the article and excerpts Direct link … Do a right-click on the link above and select “Copy Link”