My name is written in Latin alphabet in English mails just as
it would be written in Chinese Han in Chinese newspapers.
Hmmm... I agree that the "Japanese names in Chinese newspapers"
example is not very good. However, it is still true, I believe, that
if you take some Unicode Han characters and print them using a
Japanese font, then the average Chinese person can still read them.
The above misdirected pointing out has been done repreatedly several
times in Japan-domestic discussion in which Erik has participated.
It was utterly defeated instantly all the time.
I don't recall any major "defeat". The discussions only showed that
people had differing opinions.
How do you know? (Are you fluent in French, or something?)
As what I want is the discussion, I politely refrain from boosting my
ability in French nor criticizing your ability in Japanese, in both of
which rest of the party should have absolutely no interest.
I asked about your French because your answer could have been relevant
in this discussion. If you are not fluent in any language that uses
accents such as circumflex, etc, then you have no way of judging
whether or not omitting those accents would affect the readability of
the text. Even if you are somewhat fluent in such a language, your
opinion would be in doubt if it wasn't shared by "native" speakers of
that language.
Your reply to this is of course that my Japanese isn't perfect. And I
would agree. But I would also point out that *some* Japanese seem to
feel that the Han unification could be useful. We have seen evidence
of this on the fj.kanji local newsgroup. We also know that Japanese
individuals were involved in the actual unification process.
I would be one of the first to admit, however, that there are quite a
few Japanese against Han unification. Some of those may change their
minds in the near future, and others will be against Han unification
forever. It will also be interesting to see what effect (if any) the
market forces have upon all this (i.e. GO Corporation, Microsoft, and
maybe others?).
Erik