				KAKASI
      the language processing filter to convert Kanji characters
		   to Hiragana, Katakana or Romaji


KAKASI is the language processing filter to convert Kanji characters
to Hiragana, Katakana or Romaji(1) and may be helpful to read Japanese
documents.

The name "KAKASI" is the abbreviation of "kanji kana simple
inverter" and the inverse of SKK "simple kana kanji converter" which
is developed by Masahiko Sato at Tohoku University. The most entries
of the kakasi dictionary is derived form the SKK dictionaries.  If you
have some interests in the naming of "KAKASI", please consult to
Japanese-English dictionary. :-)

The kit of KAKASI includes C programs and Several kind of
dictionaries. The large dictionary "kakasidict" may be provided as
another file "kakasidict.YYMMDD.gz" since it is often revised and
really LARGE.

 (1) "Romaji" is alphabetical description of Japanese pronunciation.


KAKASI is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option)
any later version.

KAKASI is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

See the file NEWS for a list of major changes in the current release.
See the file INSTALL for compilation and installation instructions.

You can get the latest KAKASI from

	ftp://kakasi.namazu.org/pub/kakasi/

You can get information about KAKASI from

	http://kakasi.namazu.org/

Mail comments and bug reports to

	bug-kakasi@namazu.org

in Japanese or English.
