JIS X 0212
Encyclopedia
JIS X 0212 is a Japanese Industrial Standard defining coded character set for encoding the characters used in Japanese. This standard extends JIS X 0208
.
character set, and to address shortcomings in the coverage of that set.
No encapsulation of JIS X 0212 characters in the popular Shift JIS encoding is possible, as Shift JIS does not have sufficient unallocated code space for the characters.
Many WWW browsers such as the Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox family, Opera, etc. and related applications such as Mozilla Thunderbird
support the display of JIS X 0212 characters in EUC-JP encoding, however Internet Explorer
has no support for JIS X 0212 characters. Modern terminal emulation packages, such as the GNOME Terminal
also support JIS X 0212 characters.
Applications which support JIS X 0212 in the EUC coding include:
which led to the unified set of CJK
characters in the initial ISO 10646/Unicode
standard. All the 5,801 kanji were incorporated.
standard. In the longer term, its contribution will probably be seen to be the 5,801 kanji which were incorporated in Unicode
.
JIS X 0208
JIS X 0208 is a 2-byte character set specified as a Japanese Industrial Standard, containing 6879 graphic characters suitable for writing text, place names, personal names, and so forth in the Japanese language. The official title of the current standard is...
.
History
In 1990 the Japanese Standards Association (JSA) released a supplementary character set standard: JIS X 0212-1990 情報交換用漢字符号―補助漢字 (Code of the Supplementary Japanese Graphic Character Set for Information Interchange). This standard was intended to supplement and extend the range of characters available in the main JIS X 0208JIS X 0208
JIS X 0208 is a 2-byte character set specified as a Japanese Industrial Standard, containing 6879 graphic characters suitable for writing text, place names, personal names, and so forth in the Japanese language. The official title of the current standard is...
character set, and to address shortcomings in the coverage of that set.
Features
The standard specified 6,067 characters, comprising:- 21 Greek characters with diacritics
- 26 Eastern European characters with diacritics (mostly Cyrillic)
- 198 alphabetic characters with diacritics
- 5,801 kanji
Encodings
The following encodings or encapsulations are used to enable JIS X 0212 characters to be used in files, etc.- in EUC-JP characters are represented by three bytes, the first being 0x8F, the following two in the range 0xA1 – 0xFE.
- in ISO 2022 the sequence "ESC $ ( D" is used to indicate JIS X 0212 characters.
No encapsulation of JIS X 0212 characters in the popular Shift JIS encoding is possible, as Shift JIS does not have sufficient unallocated code space for the characters.
Implementations
As JIS X 0212 characters cannot be encoded in Shift JIS, the coding system which has traditionally dominated Japanese information processing, few practical implementations of the character set have taken place. As mentioned above, it can be encoded in EUC-JP, which is commonly used in Unix/Linux systems, and it is here that most implementations have occurred:- in the early 1990s basic "BDF" fonts were compiled for use in the Unix X Window SystemX Window SystemThe X window system is a computer software system and network protocol that provides a basis for graphical user interfaces and rich input device capability for networked computers...
; - an IME conversion file was compiled for the WNN system;
- the kterm console window application was extended to support it;
- the EmacsEmacsEmacs is a class of text editors, usually characterized by their extensibility. GNU Emacs has over 1,000 commands. It also allows the user to combine these commands into macros to automate work.Development began in the mid-1970s and continues actively...
and jstevie editors were extended to support it.
Many WWW browsers such as the Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox family, Opera, etc. and related applications such as Mozilla Thunderbird
Mozilla Thunderbird
Mozilla Thunderbird is a free, open source, cross-platform e-mail and news client developed by the Mozilla Foundation. The project strategy is modeled after Mozilla Firefox, a project aimed at creating a web browser...
support the display of JIS X 0212 characters in EUC-JP encoding, however Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer
Windows Internet Explorer is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, starting in 1995. It was first released as part of the add-on package Plus! for Windows 95 that year...
has no support for JIS X 0212 characters. Modern terminal emulation packages, such as the GNOME Terminal
GNOME Terminal
GNOME Terminal is a terminal emulator for the GNOME desktop environment written by Havoc Pennington and others. Terminal emulators allow users to execute commands using a real UNIX shell while remaining on their graphical desktop.-Features:...
also support JIS X 0212 characters.
Applications which support JIS X 0212 in the EUC coding include:
- the xjdic dictionary program for Unix/Linux;
- the WWWJDICWWWJDICWWWJDIC is an online Japanese dictionary based on the electronic dictionaries compiled and collected by Australian academic Jim Breen. The main Japanese–English dictionary files contain around 150,000 entries, and the ENAMDICT dictionary contains over 720,000 Japanese names...
Japanese dictionary server (however as Internet ExplorerInternet ExplorerWindows Internet Explorer is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, starting in 1995. It was first released as part of the add-on package Plus! for Windows 95 that year...
does not support the JIS X 0212 extensions in EUC, this server sends bit-mapped graphics for these characters when set in EUC-JP mode.)
JIS X 0212 and Unicode
The kanji in JIS X 0212 were taken as one of the sources for the Han unificationHan unification
Han unification is an effort by the authors of Unicode and the Universal Character Set to map multiple character sets of the so-called CJK languages into a single set of unified characters. Han characters are a common feature of written Chinese , Japanese , Korean , and—at least historically—other...
which led to the unified set of CJK
CJK
CJK is a collective term for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, which is used in the field of software and communications internationalization.The term CJKV means CJK plus Vietnamese, which constitute the main East Asian languages.- Characteristics :...
characters in the initial ISO 10646/Unicode
Unicode
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
standard. All the 5,801 kanji were incorporated.
The future
Apart from the applications mentioned above, the JIS X 0212 standard is effectively dead. 2,743 kanji from it were included in the later JIS X 0213JIS X 0213
JIS X 0213 is a Japanese Industrial Standard defining coded character sets for encoding the characters used in Japan. This standard extends JIS X 0208. The first version was published in 2000 and revised in 2004 . As well as adding a number of special characters, characters with diacritic marks,...
standard. In the longer term, its contribution will probably be seen to be the 5,801 kanji which were incorporated in Unicode
Unicode
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
.
External links
- JIS X 0212 article on the Japanese Wikipedia
- KANJD212 database documentation