Readers 读者
Chinese input methods: Overview and comparisons
中文输入法──综述与比较
Manson Cheuk-Man Fong 方卓敏, James William Minett
Abstract 摘要
The widespread use of modern-day electronic devices with Chinese text input functionalities has allowed Chinese to be typewritten and exchanged at an unprecedented rate. To serve these growing needs, continuous efforts have been made to improve the performance of Chinese input methods, which come in three main types: root-based, stroke-based and sound-based. In this paper, the precursors of the present day Chinese input methods, including some standard indexing systems of sinograms (i.e., Chinese characters) and transliteration schemes of spoken Chinese, are first introduced, followed by some of the most popular methods that exemplify the three types. Then, general comparisons between these three types of methods are provided. In particular, the encoding efficiencies of nine methods in current use are evaluated quantitatively using a set of four criteria, and it is found that root-based methods perform the best of the three types of methods in this regard. The practical values of the other two types of methods should not be diminished, however, especially because stroke-based methods are easier to learn than root-based methods, while sound-based methods can relieve the user from the need to retrieve the visual forms of sinograms. The paper concludes with considerations over the implementation aspects of Chinese input methods, from which are generalized several pointers for future developments.
现时，具备中文输入功能的电子设备使用日益广泛，中文信息的输入和传递也愈见频密。这些不断增长的需求促使了对中文输入法作不断改良的各种尝试。总的来说，中文输入法有三类，包括字根类、笔划类和拼音类。本文首先简单介绍了现今中文输入法的两个主要基础来源──各种汉字检字法和汉语的拼音系统，以及三类输入法中最为流行使用的代表方法。然后，本文比較了三类输入法的长处和短处。其中，根据九种现行的输入法的分析结果，字根类输入法比其余两类在编码效率方面较为优胜。但这并不表示其余两类的实用价值较低，因为笔划类输入法比字根类输入法较为容易学习，而拼音类输入法则可以省却用家撷取字形的困难。最后，本文探讨了有关实现中文输入法时需要作出的考虑，并为未来发展提出了一些看法。
Subject Keywords 关键词
Chinese input methods 中文输入法 Root-based input methods 字根类输入法 Stroke-based input methods 笔划类输入法 Sound-based input methods 拼音类输入法