Boshiamy (, sometimes written , a Mandarin approximation of the

Taiwanese Taiwanese may refer to: * Taiwanese language, another name for Taiwanese Hokkien * Something from or related to Taiwan (Formosa) * Taiwanese aborigines, the indigenous people of Taiwan * Han Taiwanese, the Han people of Taiwan * Taiwanese people, r ...

phrase (), meaning "It's nothing!") is a

Chinese character Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as ''kanji' ...

input method editor An input method (or input method editor, commonly abbreviated IME) is an operating system component or program that enables users to generate characters not natively available on their input devices by using sequences of characters (or mouse o ...

(IME). It was invented by

Liu Chung-tz'u / ( or ) is an East Asian surname. pinyin: in Mandarin Chinese, in Cantonese. It is the family name of the Han dynasty emperors. The character originally meant 'kill', but is now used only as a surname. It is listed 252nd in the classic t ...

(). Boshiamy uses about 300 radicals represented by 26 letters to build characters. Radicals are mapped to letters by their shapes, sounds or meanings. Boshiamy has become one of the fastest input methods by shortening codes of many characters. Speeds exceeding 200 characters per minute have been achieved in typing contests. Boshiamy was originally designed to input

traditional Chinese A tradition is a belief or behavior (folk custom) passed down within a group or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examples include holidays ...

characters, but now it also supports

simplified Chinese Simplification, Simplify, or Simplified may refer to: Mathematics Simplification is the process of replacing a mathematical expression by an equivalent one, that is simpler (usually shorter), for example * Simplification of algebraic expressions ...

character input. However, it is commercial software, and users may not be able to use it on some computers. A trial version with fewer characters is available on the official site.

Categories of radicals

The inventor of Boshiamy divided radicals into several categories as a mnemonic for learners to master radicals. All categories of radicals are treated equally in practice.

Shapes

Some radicals are mapped to letters with similar shapes. For example, some characters which entirely consists of these radicals are (O, A, O), (A, O, P), and (Y, Y, Y).

Sounds

Some radicals are mapped to letters by their sounds. For example, the character is represented as MBD, which respectively correspond to the radicals (mǐ), (bā), and (dāo). Also, some radicals are mapped to letters with English names similar to their pronunciations: (yī) is E, (èr) is R, and (xī) is C.

Meanings

Some radicals are mapped to the first letters of their English meanings. For example, (tree) is T, (car) is C, and (center) is C.

Variants

Some radicals look similar to other radicals, and are mapped to the same letter. For example, is similar to , and is represented by C.

Others

A few radicals are mapped to letters arbitrarily. For example, is U, is E, and is Y.

Rules of character input

Order

Characters are decomposed into what users call "eye order" (), that is essentially from left to right, from top to bottom. Because of the numerous radicals available, decomposition is not difficult. For some characters the order differs from

stroke order Stroke order is the order in which the strokes of a Chinese character (or Chinese derivative character) are written. A stroke is a movement of a writing instrument on a writing surface. Chinese characters are used in various forms in Chine ...

; for example the dot of is written last, but is taken first in the code because it is at the top.

Supplementary letter

The first three and the last radical of a character are taken as its code. If there are less than three letters, a supplementary letter () is added according to the shape of the last stroke of character. For example, the codes of and are both C, which have one letter only, so supplementary letter I and X are added respectively, making their codes CI and CX.

Selection

In case more than one character correspond to the same code, an extra letter can be added for selection. For example, there are three characters (, and ) for the code KPX. can be input directly with this code, can be input by appending V to the code, and by appending R. Boshiamy allows a maximum of five letters to be inputted at a time, so even for four-letter code an extra letter can still be added. Characters can also be selected by number keys.

Shortening of code

To increase input speed, a number of most common characters are given shorter codes of one or two letters. For example, (originally PDNA) is D, (FEBA) is A, (AQD) is AD. Additional "brevity radicals" () are made available for shortening the codes of more characters. For example, the original code of is JDEZ with the usual radicals, but using a brevity radical (J), it is shortened to JJN (with supplementary letter N for the last stroke). Boshiamy provides a special input mode for users to master these short codes. In this mode, users can only input a character by its shortest code, otherwise it does not output the character, but instead shows users the character alongside its shortest code.

Other features

Boshiamy supports

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, ...

Zhuyin Bopomofo (), or Mandarin Phonetic Symbols, also named Zhuyin (), is a Chinese transliteration system for Mandarin Chinese and other related languages and dialects. More commonly used in Taiwanese Mandarin, it may also be used to transcribe ...

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are still used, along with the subsequ ...

and

kana The term may refer to a number of syllabaries used to write Japanese phonological units, morae. Such syllabaries include (1) the original kana, or , which were Chinese characters ( kanji) used phonetically to transcribe Japanese, the most ...

, and other special symbols can be input directly with Boshiamy. Users can add new codes for characters or phrases.

External links

*
Official site of Boshiamy
Han character input {{Chinese language