Index sorting for Simplified Chinese is based on the pinyin method of spelling Chinese characters using Western alphabetic characters. This phonetic method is based on Mandarin. There are nearly 400 pinyin sounds. Four tonal marks can be placed over six vowels; the tonal marks can also be represented by the numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4.
Following are examples of pinyin sorting.
Sorted Chinese word |
Pinyin with accent marks |
Pinyin with numbers |
|---|---|---|
 |
línbíé |
lin2bie2 |
 |
línzhong |
lin2zhong1 |
 |
lìngwaì |
ling4wai4 |
FrameMaker products assign the most commonly used pinyin sound to each Chinese character. If the assignment is incorrect, you can specify the correct pinyin by enclosing it in brackets after the Chinese character in the index marker text. You must use numbers to represent the tonal marks, as in the following example:
A new index keyword, <$pinyin>, is added
to the SortOrderIX paragraph on the IX reference
page. You cannot redefine the sort order.
Group titles for index entries are defined in the GroupTitlesIX paragraph
on the IX reference page. In Simplified Chinese documents, the default
group titles are the same as in Western-language documents: Symbols,
Numerics, and the letters A through Z.