![]() | You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Chinese. (March 2024) Click [show] for important translation instructions.
|
Cangjie input method | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
![]() Coding of "倉頡輸入法" (i.e. Cangjie method) in traditional Chinese characters | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Traditional Chinese | 倉頡輸入法 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Simplified Chinese | 仓颉输入法 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
The Cangjie input method (Tsang-chieh input method, sometimes called Changjie, Cang Jie, Changjei[1] or Chongkit) is a system for entering Chinese characters into a computer using a standard computer keyboard. In filenames and elsewhere, the name Cangjie is sometimes abbreviated as cj.
The input method was invented in 1976 by Chu Bong-Foo, and named after Cangjie (Tsang-chieh), the mythological inventor of the Chinese writing system, at the suggestion of Chiang Wei-kuo, the former Defense Minister of Taiwan. Chu Bong-Foo released the patent for Cangjie in 1982, as he thought that the method should belong to Chinese cultural heritage.[2] Therefore, Cangjie has become open-source software and is on every computer system that supports traditional Chinese characters, and it has been extended so that Cangjie is compatible with the simplified Chinese character set.
Cangjie is the first Chinese input method to use the QWERTY keyboard. Chu saw that the QWERTY keyboard had become an international standard, and therefore believed that Chinese-language input had to be based on it.[3] Other, earlier methods use large keyboards with 40 to 2400 keys, except the Four-Corner Method, which uses only number keys.
Unlike the Pinyin input method, Cangjie is based on the graphological aspect of the characters: each graphical unit, called a "radical" (not to be confused with Kangxi radicals), is re-parented by a basic character component, 24 in total, each mapped to a particular letter key on a standard QWERTY keyboard. An additional "difficult character" function is mapped to the X key. Keys are categorized into four groups, to facilitate learning and memorization. Assigning codes to Chinese characters is done by separating the constituent "radicals" of the characters.