NAME

Lingua::JA::Romanize::Japanese - Romanization of Japanese language

SYNOPSIS

    use Lingua::JA::Romanize::Japanese;

    my $conv = Lingua::JA::Romanize::Japanese->new();
    my $roman = $conv->char( $kanji );
    printf( "<ruby><rb>%s</rb><rt>%s</rt></ruby>", $kanji, $roman );

    my @array = $conv->string( $string );
    foreach my $pair ( @array ) {
        my( $raw, $ruby ) = @$pair;
        if ( defined $ruby ) {
            printf( "<ruby><rb>%s</rb><rt>%s</rt></ruby>", $raw, $ruby );
        } else {
            print $raw;
        }
    }

DESCRIPTION

Japanese language is written with a mix of Kanji and Kana characters. Most of Kanji characters used in Japan were imported from China. Two types of Kana characters, called Katakana and Hiragana, were created in Japan. Kana characters are general terms for the syllabic Japanese scripts.

METHODS

$conv = Lingua::JA::Romanize::Japanese->new();

This constructer methods returns a new object with its dictionary cached.

$roman = $conv->char( $kanji );

This method returns romanized letters from a Japanese character. It returns undef when $Kana is not a valid Japanese character. The argument's encoding must be UTF-8. Both of Kanji and Kana characters are allowed.

$roman = $conv->chars( $string );

This method returns romanized letters from multiple Japanese characters.

@array = $conv->string( $string );

This method returns a array of referenced arrays which are pairs of Japanese chacater(s) and its romanized letters.

    $array[0]           # first Japanese character(s)'s pair (array)
    $array[1][0]        # secound Japanese character(s) itself
    $array[1][1]        # its romanized letters

DICTIONARY

This module's Japanese to roman mapping table is based on the dictionary of SKK which is a Japanese input method on Emacs. It was designed by Dr. Masahiko Sato and created in 1987. SKK is an abbreviation of 'Simple Kana to Kanji conversion program'.

UTF-8 FLAG

This treats utf8 flag transparently.

MODULE DEPENDENCIES

DB_File module is required.

AUTHOR

Yusuke Kawasaki http://www.kawa.net/

COPYRIGHT

LICENSE

This dictionary is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either versions 2, or (at your option) any later version.