katakana and hiragana charts PNG

I have placed two Japanese kana chart images at aule-browser.com/nihongo :

aule-browser.com/nihongo/images/hiragana-rs-72pt-1280-960.png

and

aule-browser.com/nihongo/images/katakana-rs-72pt-1280-960.png

which were both created using an easy to edit script in the Curl web content language ( formerly MIT Curl before being marketted by Curl Corp and now maintained in Version 8 by SCSK of Tokyo.)

The font in this case is 72pt HanaMinA in navy blue on a cornsilk background.

The same basic charts in Meiryo font can be seen at

aule-browser.com/nihongo/images/hiragana-rs-72pt-1280-960-meiryo.png

and

aule-browser.com/nihongo/images/katakana-rs-72pt-1280-960-meiryo.png

The Curl macros used are simply table, row and cell as in

  {table 
         {row {cell A} {cell B} {cell C} ... }
         {row {cell J} {cell K} {cell L} ... }
         ...
  }

A few blank cells were used for alignment where no character exists in a given column and are merely

   {cell \ }

The slash + space gives us a space character rather like a non-breaking blank in HTML.

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Masaoka Shiki New Year haiku 1893-1902

The conversion of the Shiki haiku to UTF-8 is nearly complete with these :

Now to devise a flexible applet which a user can configure to suit their kanji learning needs using the Shiki haiku collections as a resource.

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Shiki hototogisu pun

In 1895 we already have Shiki

水無月の虚空に涼し時鳥

In 1897 the journal 時鳥 is founded (hototogisu).

Thereafter, in the month of no more May showers, under the empty sky, a cool breeze will find us reading the journal.  He may have looked back with amusement at the retrospective pun.

Empty, empty, carried away on a breeze, the unseen bird ( kanji for time + kanji for bird ) - and like Berlin, cool is that of a capital ... and the Kyoto lamp at the gate ... but we find that coolness underground, damp ... and rightly so ... the 3rd memento mori.

Hanami, May showers, dry sixth month

Empty, empty, the breeze and seeing the temple clock - a candle ?

Janine Beichman's translation can be seen here as item 16.1 at the top of the poems on that page.

I failed to recognize this kanji this morning. Ah - so desu.

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