Japanese ruby ​​has been introduced into the international guidelines for electronic texts for the humanities.A subcommittee of the TEI Association, an international organization established by Professor Masahiro Shimoda of the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, the University of Tokyo, proposed to the association, and it is the first international guideline established by the Western countries to be unique to Japan. Semantics were introduced.

 Ruby is a small addition of kana to the side of Chinese characters, and has been used extensively since the Edo period, and has greatly contributed to the popularization of literature.Since the Meiji era, this has come to be called ruby.

 The TEI Association's international guidelines have been established as a systematic way to describe the various structures inherent in the materials studied in the humanities on digital media, and have become de facto international standards.However, since it has been formulated with the aim of a description method that does not depend on a specific cultural area, it has been avoided to be biased toward one culture or tradition.

 Therefore, Professor Shimoda and his colleagues insisted that the unique semantics of East Asian and Japanese materials should have a unique description through digital research on Buddhist studies, and promoted international standardization. In 2016, he established a specialized subcommittee on East Asia and Japan within the TEI Association, and has continued to lead the dissemination and research activities of TEI in Japan.Utilizing the findings gained here, the introduction of Japanese ruby ​​semantics proposed by the subcommittee will be reflected in the version released on February 2021, 2 and incorporated into the basic structure of the entire TEI guideline. is what happened.

 This is the first time that Japan-specific semantics have been introduced into international guidelines.Professor Shimoda and his colleagues believe that this will be an important starting point for advancing the humanities on the premise of the diversity of cultures and traditions of each country.

reference:[The University of Tokyo] Japanese semantics (ruby) will be introduced in the international guidelines for building electronic texts for the humanities (PDF)

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