Re: Readability of Japanese email message

[Dennis McMurchy <denismcm@example.com>]

  Hi,

  Earlier today I posted a line of Japanese,

子どもらよいざ出でいなむ伊夜日子の岡のすみれの花にほひ見に   (良寛)

and asked whether it was readable or not.  As usual, there was an
immediate and very helpful response from many quarters.  Thanks a lot
everyone.  

  Steve Turnbull recommended a very handy tool others might want to
add to their toolbox.  I'm sure he won't mind me quoting him here:

   Check and see what character set is used for your outgoing mail, just
   for laughs.  If your correspondent has successfully sent *you* mail,
   check that too.  Use Ken Lunde's jconv: 'jconv -c <file>'.
       file://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp/pub/Linux-util/jconv.c
   JE's nkf doesn't seem to have a "detect code" option.

  And for those who complained that, while the characters were readable,
the Japanese itself was incomprehensible (this is an 18th century waka),
let me add a transl(iter)ation:

kodomora yo		Hey kids, come on, let's go have a look at
iza ide inamu		the smell of the violets on Iyahiko hill
iyahiko no oka  
no sumire no hana
nioi mi ni


Dennis McMurchy, 
Tojinmachi, Fukuoka

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