Japanese input method (JIM)

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This section discusses the Japanese input method (JIM).

The Japanese input method (JIM) include the following features:

  • Supports Romaji to Kana character conversion (RKC).
  • Supports Kana to Kanji character conversion (KKC).
  • Includes Hankaku (half-width) and Zenkaku (full-width) character input.
  • Provides system and user dictionary lookup.
  • Provides run-time registration of a word to the user dictionary.
  • Requires Callback functions to support:
    • Status and Pre-edit drawing
    • All candidate menus
    • JIS Kutan number input and IBM® Kanji number input
  • Supports IBM-943, IBM-932 and IBM-eucJP code sets. For internal processing, the JIM uses the IBM-942 code set. However, the JIM supports any code set, such as IBM-eucJP, that can be converted from IBM-932.
  • Located in the /usr/lib/nls/loc/JP.im file. All other localized input methods are aliases to this file.

Katakana and Hiragana consist of approximately 50 characters each and form the set of phonetic characters referred to as Kana. All of the sounds in the Japanese language can be represented in Kana.

Kanji is a set of ideographs. A simple concept can be represented by a single Kanji character, while more complicated meanings can be formed with strings of Kanji characters. Several thousand Kanji characters exist.

The Japanese also use the Roman alphabet. Called Romaji, the Roman alphabet consists of 26 characters. It is used mostly in technical and professional environments to represent technical vocabulary that does not exist in Japanese. A typical sentence is usually a mixture of Katakana, Hiragana, Kanji, Romaji, numbers, and other characters.