ZhengMa Tutorial

郑码 Z HE NG MA A Brief Introduction for English Speakers  Learning Chinese Characters by Typing Them on the Computer By MEGATRON COOKIE September 2008

1. INTRODUCTION

.................................................................................................... 1 2. QUICK START

.......................................................................................................... 5 3. LEGO A CHINESE CHARACTER

...................................................................... 7 4. DISSECT A CHINESE CHARACTER

............................................................... 9 5. FURTHER EXPLORATION

............................................................................... 10 APPENDIX

..................................................................................................................12

1. INTRODUCTION Nowadays Pinyin (拼音) is the most popular method to enter Chinese characters into the computer. This method is based on the pronunciation (Pinyin) of the Chinese character, which can be “spelled out” with 26 English alphabetic letters on a regular keyboard. The obvious caveat is that many Chinese characters share the same pronunciation, though bearing completely different meanings. For example, the Pinyin “zhi bing” matches the pronunciation of both “治病” and “致病”. The former means “curing of the disease” and the latter means “causing the disease“. (Yes, read the label carefully next time you try some herbal medicine.) So this phonetic input method requires the user to interactively select the Chinese character among possible candidates after he/she spells out the Pinyin.

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P#$P"6),"P%$PN"*$S2(2"'2(/0$F(2"#(@54+02#7(*##4*(25(-#('-1#(25(7#*+5$,(25(2"#*#(4.*2#7)50*(1#22#7*;(>2S*(5$1. Isn’t that fun, the computer seems to be able to respond to these mysterious letters. It’s only -#%)$$)$%(5/(/0$F(3')2(2)11(.50(C$53("53(25(@54+5*#(2"#(@5,#*(.507*#1/; the beginning of fun, wait till you know how to compose the codes yourself. 4  

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There are fan DIY software to attach ZhengMa input method to SCIM (input method framework under Linux). For MAC users, such patching may undergo OpenVanilla or FIT. QIM supports ZhengMa, but it isn't a free software. 4

A complete root code diagram is attached in the Appendix. It may seem intimidating at first look. But it's just like the many dials in the cockpit of an airplane. Once you know how things are organized, it's not that complex after all.

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3. LEGO A CHINESE CHARACTER There are basically five kinds of strokes to write a Chinese character by hand. In ZhengMa, they are coded by five letters: A, I, M, S and Y.  A: 一 I: 丨 M: 丿 S: 丶 Y: 了 If you type “ai”, the computer will respond with a Chinese character 丁, which is composed of these two strokes: 一 and 丨. One of my primary school classmates has the first name 丁. Like Bart Simpson, when a kid gets into trouble in the school, as punishment, he is forced to write his name repeatedly on the blackboard. 丁 was never afraid of doing so because his name only has two simple strokes. (Talk about parents foreseeing a kid’s future) By the way, the series of comic strips “The Adventures of Tintin”, its hero Tintin has his name in Chinese: 丁丁. Another example, “ya“ yields 子, meaning son. The real tricky part is how do you know the order of the strokes, whether it is “ay” or “ya”. The general rule is to write from left to right, and from top to bottom. For characters with few strokes or convoluted structures, the rule isn’t that inclusive. However you don’t need to take a 3-credit-hour Chinese course or have a Chinese tutor to know the stroke nuances. ZhengMa on your computer is your best tutor, just trial and error, see whether the computer agrees with your stroke order. However these five strokes are too simple to be useful. Because a 20+ strokes Chinese character may require 20+ keystrokes to input, stroke by stroke like this. That’s definitely too cumbersome. So ZhengMa’s inventor came up with larger “LEGO” bricks, called roots (coded by single letters from A-Z) and sub-roots (coded by 2 alphabetic letters). Both the roots and sub-roots are frequently used building blocks of Chinese characters. With the help of these sub-structures, ZhengMa can code each Chinese character with no more than 4 letters. But still these five strokes (A, I, M, S, Y) are the most important elements of any stroke-based encoding system. If you are into computer programming languages, these five

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strokes are just like “primitives” (or keywords) of a programming language. The various roots are like built-in function libraries (or API calls). Of course, the third most important part of a programming language is “the rules of combination”, i.e. how to write your own function/code. In the context of ZhengMa, how to compose a Chinese character with these roots (and sub-roots)? Here are the complete rules: 1. ZhengMa uses no more than 4 alphabetic letters to encode each Chinese character. 2. Each Chinese character is composed of roots and/or sub-roots. The roots are encoded with single letters; sub-roots are encoded with 2 letters. Example: root 土(b) and subroot 工(bi). 3. Character made of 1 or 2 roots/sub-roots, its code won’t exceed 4 letters. Just type in the corresponding letters for its roots/sub-roots, following the order of “left-to-right”, “topto-bottom”. Example: 木(f) + 子(ya) = 李(fya), 曰(k) + 十(ed) = 早(ked), 日(k) + 月(q) = 明(kq). 4. Character made of 3 roots/sub-roots, its first root/sub-root needs to be spelled out completely (i.e. 1 or 2 letter), the middle one allows for only 1 letter, the last root/sub-root allows for 1 or 2 letter to fill the 4-letter slot. So the formula is 1+1+2, 1+1+1 or 2+1+1. Example: 箱(mfl; 1+1+1), 肝(qaed; 1+1+2), 教(bmym; 2+1+1). Notice 教 (teach) has parts: 耂(bm), 子(ya), and 攵(mo), but to accommodate the 4-letter slot, only the first letters of the sub-roots (子, 攵) are included. 5. Character made of 4+ roots/sub-roots, as always its first root/sub-root needs to be spelled out completely (i.e. 1 or 2 letter), the second, the second-to-last and the last root/subroot each allows for 1 letter respectively. The formula becomes 1+1+1+1 or 2+0+1+1. Example: 鳞(rurm; 1+1+1+1), 赢(shlq; 2+0+0+1+1).

With the complete root/sub-root table in hand (see Appendix), and these 5 rules, you can start building/typing Chinese characters right away. Not every character you build corresponds to an existing Chinese character, but it’s easy to fish out a big one that contains the pieces you like. For example, you may like the character 人 (human) because it looks exactly like someone walking. It is listed as a sub-root od (2-letter) in the table. To add “more people”, try 从 (odod), not happy，and want more people? How about ododod? Not really. Remember rule 1? The code can‘t be longer than 4 letters. Also remember rule 4, for a 3 subroots character the code should be (od+o+o): 众 (lots of people).  8

There is certainly no Chinese character with more people in it, because if there is, the code (odoo) will certainly bring it out. (Remember rule 5?)  Exercise: try to type 品, 森, 淼, 垚 (Yes, these are all Chinese characters, but your Chinese professor probably won’t be able to pronounce all of them without the help of a dictionary.) One way to be familiar yourself with the roots/sub-roots in the table is to game with them by putting them on your “scrabble” tiles. You can play “scrabble” with friends, to see who can make the “longest” Chinese character. And ZhengMa on your computer is the ideal “scrabble” dictionary to check the validity of the character.  

4. DISSECT A CHINESE CHARACTER If you would like to impress your friend by telling him/her the meaning of his/her Chinese character tattoo, you can type that character in the computer and use google translate or other online dictionary to find its meaning. This leads to most difficult section in this article: given a Chinese character, dissect it into parts that match ZhengMa’s roots and sub-roots. It is essential to recognize the roots and sub-roots and to realize that these are the basic units that shall not be further taken apart. For example, the character 郭 (sjyy; 1+1+1+1) should be dissected into 亠(s)，口(j)，子(ya)，and 阝(y). According to rule 5, we shall pick s (for the first root 亠) + jyy (the first letters of the rest of the roots/subroots). In this case 子 is a sub-root (coded ya), which should not be further decomposed into 了(y) and 一(a). Because otherwise, if you thought 郭 were made of five components: 亠, 口, 了, 一, 阝, its code would have become sjay, according to rule 5. Just like taking apart your iPod, in order to be able to pry it open, you need to know where to insert the plastic wedge. For many Chinese characters, its structure gives hint where the break point shall be. For ecample: 栖(ffj) = 木(f) + 西(fj) LEFT-RIGHT structure. 西 is already a sub-root, so don’t break it further. 穷(woym) = 穴(wo) + 力(ym) TOP-BOTTOM structure. 畦(kibb) = 田(ki ) +土(b) + 土(b) LEFT-RIGHT, then the right side TOP-BOTTOM struc-

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ture. 契(ciyg) = 丰(ci) + 刀 (yd) + 大(gd) TOP-BOTTOM, with upper part LEFT-RIGHT structure. 起(boyy) = 走(bo) + 己(yy) can still be thought as LEFT-RIGHT, though the left part crosses the middle a little bit. 国(jdcs) = 囗(jd) + 玉(cs) ENCLOSURE structure. The structure that is most difficult to identify is called SANDWICH structure. For example 巫(bioo) = 工(bi) + 人(od) + 人(od) and 亘(bdk) = 二(bd) + 曰(k). There are also nuances like 失 and 矢 are two different characters, but with the same parts. To distinguish between them, 矢(ma) is made into a sub-root. 失 is allowed to be broken into mb + od. This is also the case for 牛(mb) and 午(maed). The general guideline is to break the character into sub-structures until roots/sub-roots are matched. Exceptions can happen when the character is too “slim”.

5. FURTHER EXPLORATION Much can be said about ZhengMa’s roots/sub-roots table. Decades of research effort went into perfecting it.  Sub-roots and roots are grouped into five categories based on their first stroke, which is among 一, 丨, 丿, 丶, 了 as discussed in section 3. 1. A to H encode roots/sub-roots with the first stroke 一. 2. I to L encode roots/sub-roots with the first stroke 丨. 3. M to R encode roots/sub-roots with the first stroke 丿. 4. S to W encode roots/sub-roots with the first stroke 丶. 5. X to Z encode roots/sub-roots with the first stroke 乛, 了, 乚 respectively. Once you recognize the first stroke of a character (or its sub-structure) you can start looking for the corresponding root/sub-root in the table (see Appendix). If there is no proper match, it means that you need to take the character further apart.

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Even though sub-roots are coded with 2 letters, it is obvious, according to the encoding rule, that the second letter is left out most of the time. Also the way in which sub-roots are encoded isn’t arbitrary at all. For example, 子(ya) is a sub-root under root 了(y). Its code comes from 了(y) + 一(a). Similarly 田(ki) comes from 曰(k) + 丨(i).  In fact, most of the sub-roots can be deduced as add-on of the root character. It certainly helps you look up and remember the 2-letter codes, once you are familiar with the 26 root characters.  So why do we need 2-letter sub-root? Why not just use 1-letter roots to code the characters? Well, for one thing, the code can become longer than 4 letters in some cases.  In order to stick with 4-letter codes, one then has to deal with ambiguities caused by packing 1-letter with multiple roots. By the way, Wubi input method is a 1-letter root encoding system. It relies on a complicated isolation-key method to fight the ambiguities. Still its limited number of roots makes its character space quite small comparing to ZhengMa. As we mentioned in section 1, the Pinyin method encourages users to type multi-character phrase in order to resolve the ambiguities. The same multi-character strategy can apply to ZhengMa. For example, 计算机(smlf) = 讠 (s) + (ml) + 木(f), it is composed of 1-letter from the first root/sub-root of the first character 计, first two letters from the first two root/sub-root of the middle character 算, and 1-letter from the first root/sub-root of the last character 机. It is as if we are coding each character with total of only 1 or 2 letters in a multi-character phrase.  To go the other direction, why don’t we define more 2 or 3 letters sub-roots? Obviously, with 2-letter codes, 26 x 26 = 676, there are not that many sub-roots in ZhengMa’s code table (see Appendix).  It would make typing single character faster at the price of more memorization. (The good old “speed” vs. “memory space” trade-off)  In fact, ZhengMa does have 2-letter and 3-letter “short-cut” codes that aim for speed-typing by professional typists. 

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APPENDIX (ZhengMa Roots/sub-roots Table)

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A

AI

AI

B

B

BD BK

BI

BI

BI

BO

BM

BM

C

CS

CD CI

CI

CI

CK

CK

CO

CO

CE

CH CH

D

D

DS

E

E

E

ED

EH

EH

EA

EA

EA

EB

EB

EC

F

FD

FB

FV

FK

FK

FJ

FJ

G

G

GD GD

GG

GH

GI

GL

GO

GQ GQ GQ

H

H

H

H

H

HD

HD HD HS

I

ID

ID

ID

II

II

IO

IH

IH

J

JD

JD

JI

JI

K

K

K

K

KD

KD

KD

KD

KI

L

LD

LD

LD

LD

LD

LD

LD

LD LD

CH

CH

GR

GR

GR

GM

HM HM HM

HM

HI

HE

HB

KIA

KIB KIC

KC

KU

KO

KO

KO

KV

KV

KV

LD

LD

LD

LD

LK

LK

LK

LK

LKA

LD

EE

LI

LL

LC

LC

LR

LO

LW

M

M

MA MA

MB

MB

MB MB MB MC

MD MD

MY

MH ME MI

MI

MF

MF MO

N

ND

ND

ND

ND

NX

NX NI

NK

NL

NL

NC

NB

NB

NB

NB

NJ

NJ

NJ

O

OD

OD

ODA OI

OI

OS

OX

OX

P

P

PD

PD

PD

PDA PV

PV

PS

PY

PY

PF

PQ

Q

Q

Q

QD

QDA QM QS QY

QYA

R

R

R

RD

RS

RS

RS

RS

RO

RY

RZ

RZ

RZA RR

RR

RR

S

S

S

SK

SO

SY

SU SE

SH

SK

T

T

TD

TD

TD

TG

TX

TI

TI

TL

U

U

UD

UD

UA

UA

UB UB

UB

UB

UB

UC UC

UC

UC UF

UO UO

V

V

V

VD

W

W

W

WD

X

X

X

X

XM XM XM XMA XB

XB

XB

XB

XB

XB

XO XO

XK

Y

Y

Y

Y

Y

YD YDA YDA YT

YM

YM YI

YIA

YA

YY

YY

Z

ZD

ZD

ZD

ZI

ZI

ZI

ZY

ZY

ZS

ZS

ZS

RS

TX

RY

RY

RH

RH

RH

RH

WD WM WS WT WZ WW WO

ZI

ZI

ZI

ZY

XK

XS

XS

XS

XS

YYA YYB YYB

YYB YZ

YZ

ZM ZM ZM

ZM

XI

RH