XINHUA is the official news agency of the People's Republic of China

LHASA (April 30) XINHUA - Computer researchers in southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region have worked out standard coding of the Tibetan language to keep pace with the information age.

"Coding the Tibetan language enables us to directly get access to computer information and networks," said Nyima Cering with the Tibet University, who heads a team of computer experts in the research of coding Tibetan language.

The team began their work in 1994, and after three years of arduous work, their coding standard has been accepted by world computer organizations, including Microsoft in the United States.

With the assistance of this coding interface, computer users of Tibetan language will be able to use the software developed by many computer companies in the world, Nyima Cering said.

In accordance with international coding standards, the experts have also won approval from the State Bureau of Technological Supervision for their coding of Tibetan characters, keyboards, and fonts.

"On this basis, we will develop application software in Tibetan language to make the information network serve the development of the Tibetan language," Nyima Cering said.

With the improvement of information technology, computer typesetting of Tibetan has taken the place of stereotyping, and the diversified types of printing styles of Tibetan had to be standardized, Nyima Cering said.

So far, 22 types of fonts have been approved by state departments as standard Tibetan printing fonts.