Chinese telegraph code

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The Chinese telegraph code (中文電碼 / 中文电码 Zhōngwén diànmǎ or 中文電報碼 / 中文电报码 Zhōngwén diànbàomǎ^[1]) is a four-digit decimal code for electrically telegraphing messages written with Chinese characters.

1 Encoding and decoding
2 History
3 Application
4 Notes
5 References and bibliography
6 See also
7 External links

[edit] Encoding and decoding

A codebook is provided for encoding and decoding the Chinese telegraph code. It shows one-to-one correspondence between Chinese characters and four-digit numbers from 0000 to 9999. Chinese characters are arranged and numbered in dictionary order according to their radicals and strokes. Each page of the book shows 100 pairs of a Chinese character and a number in a 10×10 table. The most significant two digits of a code matches the page number, the next digit matches the row number, and the least significant digit matches the column number. For example, the code 0022 for the character 中 (zhōng), meaning “center,” is given in page 00, row 2, column 2 of the codebook, and the code 2429 for the character 文 (wén), meaning “script,” is given in page 24, row 2, column 9. The PRC’s Standard Telegraph Codebook (Ministry of Post and Telecommunications 2002) provides codes for approximately 7,000 Chinese characters.

Senders convert their messages written with Chinese characters to a sequence of digits according to the codebook. For instance, the phrase 中文信息 (Zhōngwén xìnxī), meaning “information in Chinese,” is rendered into the code as 0022 2429 0207 1873. It is transmitted using the Morse code. Receivers decode the Morse code to get a sequence of digits, chop it into an array of quadruplets, and then decode them one by one referring to the book.

Senders may translate their messages into numbers by themselves, or pay a small charge to have them translated by a telegrapher.^[2] Chinese expert telegraphers used to remember several thousands of codes of the most frequent use.

The Standard Telegraph Codebook gives alternative three-letter code (AAA, AAB,…) for Chinese characters. It compresses international telegram messages and cuts the fees by 25% as compared to the four-digit code.^[3] The codebook also defines codes for Zhuyin alphabet, Latin alphabet, Cyrillic alphabet, and various symbols including special symbols for months, days in a month, and hours.

[edit] History

Viguier’s Chinese telegraph codes from 0001 to 0200 (Viguier 1872). These codes are obsolete and shall not be used today.

The first telegraph code for Chinese was brought into use soon after the Great Northern Telegraph Company (大北電報公司 / 大北电报公司 Dàběi Diànbào Gōngsī) introduced telegraphy to China in 1871. Septime Auguste Viguier, a Frenchman customs officer in Shanghai, published a codebook (Viguier 1872), succeeding Danish astronomer Hans Carl Frederik Christian Schjellerup’s earlier work.

In consideration of the former code’s insufficiency and disorder of characters, Zheng Guanying (鄭觀應 / 郑观应 Zhèng Guānyīng) compiled a new codebook in 1881. It had been effective until the Ministry of Transportation and Communications printed a new book in 1929. In 1933, a supplement was added to the book.

After the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the codebook forked into two different versions, due to revisions made in the Mainland China and Taiwan independently from each other. The Mainland version, the Standard Telegraph Codebook, adopted the simplified Chinese characters in 1981.

[edit] Application

The Chinese telegraph code can be used for a Chinese input method for computers. Ordinary computer users today hardly master it because it needs a lot of rote memorization.

The Hong Kong residents’ identification cards have the Chinese telegraph code for the holder’s Chinese name (Immigration Department of Hong Kong 2006). Business forms provided by the government and corporations in Hong Kong often require filling out telegraph codes for Chinese names. The codes help inputting Chinese characters to a computer.

[edit] Notes

^ Simply diànmǎ or diànbàomǎ may refer to the “Chinese telegraph code” whereas diànmǎ is a general term for “code,” as seen in Móěrsī diànmǎ (摩爾斯電碼 / 摩尔斯电码) for the “Morse code” and Bóduō diànmǎ (博多電碼 / 博多电码) for the “Baudot code.”
^ The Tianjin Communications Corporation (2004) in the PRC charges RMB 0.01 per character for their encoding service, compared to their domestic telegraph rate of RMB 0.13 per character.
^ This technique does not make sense with respect to Chinese domestic telegrams because the domestic rate is charged by the number of Chinese characters composing a message.

[edit] References and bibliography

Baark, Erik. 1997. Lightning Wires: The Telegraph and China’s Technological Modernization, 1860–1890. Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-30011-9.
Baark, Erik. 1999. “Wires, codes, and people: The Great Northern Telegraph Company in China.” In China and Denmark: Relations Since 1674, edited by Kjeld Erik Brødsgaard and Mads Kirkebæk, Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, pp. 119–152. ISBN 87-87062-71-2.
Immigration Department of Hong Kong. 2006. Card face design of a smart identity card. Hong Kong Special Administrative District Government. Accessed on December 22, 2006.
Jacobsen, Kurt. 1997. “Danish watchmaker created the Chinese Morse system.” Morsum Magnificat, 51, pp. 14–19.
Lín Jìnyì (林進益 / 林进益), editor. 1984. 漢字電報コード変換表 Kanji denpō kōdō henkan hyō [Chinese character telegraph code conversion table] (In Japanese). Tokyo: KDD Engineering & Consulting.
Ministry of Post and Telecommunications (中央人民政府郵電部 / 中央人民政府邮电部 Zhōngyāng Rénmín Zhèngfǔ Yóudiànbù), editor. 1952. 標準電碼本 / 标准电码本 Biāozhǔn diànmǎběn [Standard telegraph codebook], 2nd edition (In Chinese). Beijing: Ministry of Post and Telecommunications.
Ministry of Post and Telecommunications (中华人民共和国邮电部 Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó Yóudiànbù), editor. 2002. 标准电码本 Biāozhǔn diànmǎběn [Standard telegraph codebook], 修订本 xīudìngběn [revised edition] (In Chinese). Beijing: 人民邮电出版社 Rénmín Yóudiàn Chūbǎnshè [People’s Post and Telecommunications Publishing]. ISBN 7-115-04219-5.
Reeds, James A. 2004. Chinese telegraph code (CTC). Accessed on December 25, 2006.
Shanghai City Local History Office (上海市地方志办公室 Shànghǎi Shì Dìfāngzhì Bàngōngshì). 2004. 专业志: 上海邮电志 Zhūanyèzhì: Shànghǎi yóudìanzhì [Industrial history: Post and communications history in Shanghai] (In Chinese). Accessed on December 22, 2006.
Stripp, Alan. 2002. Codebreaker in the Far East. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-280386-7.
Tianjin Communications Corporation. 2004. 资费标准: 国内公众电报业务 Zīfèi biāozhǔn: Guónèi gōngzhòng diànbào yèwù [Rate standards: Domestic public telegraph service] (In Chinese). Accessed on December 26, 2006.
Viguier, Septime Auguste (威基謁 / 威基谒 Wēijīyè). 1872. 電報新書 / 电报新书 Diànbào xīnshū [New book for the telegraph] (In Chinese). Published in Shanghai.
Viguier, Septime Auguste (威基謁 / 威基谒 Wēijīyè) and Dé Míngzài (德明在). 1871. 電信新法 / 电信新法 Diànxìn xīnfǎ [New method for the telegraph] (In Chinese).
Yasuoka Kōichi (安岡孝一) and Yasuoka Motoko (安岡素子). 1997. Why is “唡” included in JIS X 0221? (In Japanese). IPSJ SIG Technical Report, 97-CH-35, pp. 49–54.
Yasuoka Kōichi (安岡孝一) and Yasuoka Motoko (安岡素子). 2006. 文字符号の歴史: 欧米と日本編 Moji fugō no rekishi: Ōbei to Nippon hen [A history of character codes in Japan, America, and Europe] (In Japanese). Tokyo: 共立出版 Kyōritsu Shuppan ISBN 4-320-12102-3.