From: Matt Gushee <mgushee@...>
Date: 2002-10-24T01:10:55+09:00
Subject: Re: FYI: Ruby Text

On Wed, Oct 23, 2002 at 07:51:37PM +0900, ts wrote:
> 
> J> Maybe I have been sleeping, but I don't recall having ever heard
> J> of Ruby Text before in XHTML.
> 
>  Well, if I'm right this is just this
> 
>     http://www.w3.org/TR/ruby/

Yes, that's tiny characters that appear above kanji in Japanese to
indicate their pronunciation; they're heavily used in children's books,
in general works for unusual kanji, and sometimes to show a non-standard
pronunciation as a literary device. They're called _furigana_ in
Japanese.

I don't know if they're used in any other language.

-- 
Matt Gushee                 When a nation follows the Way,
Englewood, Colorado, USA    Horses bear manure through
mgushee@havenrock.com           its fields;
http://www.havenrock.com/   When a nation ignores the Way,
                            Horses bear soldiers through
                                its streets.
                                
                            --Lao Tzu (Peter Merel, trans.)