CJKV Information Processing, 2nd Edition

94

|

Chapter 3: Character Set Standards

issues, such as the full-width “yen” currency and “backslash” symbols, which are encoded

at 5 and 3, respectively. Of course, if everything is done using Unicode, there

is no ambiguity.

Chinese Character Set Standards—China

As you learned earlier in this chapter, Japan was the rst to develop and implement a

multiple-byte national character set. e other major CJKV locales—China, Taiwan, and

Korea—soon followed by developing their own. is section describes the character set

standards established by China, or more specically, the People’s Republic of China, or

PRC ( zhōnghuá rénmín gònghé guó).

All Chinese character set standards begin with the designator GB, which stands for

“Guo Biao” ( guóbiāo), which itself is short for “Guojia Biaozhun” ( guójiā

biāozhn) and means “National Standard.” Some GB standards have a “/T” tacked onto

the “GB” to form “GB/T.” e “T” here stands for “Tui” ( tuī), which is short for “Tui-

jian” ( tuījiàn) and means “recommended” (as opposed to “forced” or “mandatory”).

Contrary to popular belief, the “T” does not stand for “traditional” (as in “traditional

hanzi”).

e two most important Chinese character set standards are GB 2312-80 and GB 18030-

2005. e former forms the foundation for all Chinese character sets that followed, and the

latter’s support has been declared ...