# Proper ruby text (\<rb\>) syntax support in Markdown

**URL:** <https://talk.commonmark.org/t/proper-ruby-text-rb-syntax-support-in-markdown/2279>\
**Category:** Extensions\
**Created:** [October 28, 2016, 7:19pm UTC](https://talk.commonmark.org/t/proper-ruby-text-rb-syntax-support-in-markdown/2279 "2016-10-28T19:19:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 8

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**Author:** ![obskyr](https://cdn.commonmark.org/user_avatar/talk.commonmark.org/obskyr/32/1188_2.png) [@obskyr](https://talk.commonmark.org/u/obskyr)\
**Post date:** [July 11, 2017, 8:36am UTC](https://talk.commonmark.org/t/proper-ruby-text-rb-syntax-support-in-markdown/2279/8 "2017-07-11T08:36:20Z")

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> [@amclees](#):
>
> It isn’t particularly suited for Chinese, but work fairly well with Japanese.

I thought about that, too. Since [lenticular brackets are used in Chinese too](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracket#Lenticular_brackets), and Chinese is 100% hanzi, the `漢字【かんじ】` syntax could lead to surprises in Chinese text. That’s an argument against it. I don’t how much CommonMark cares about entirely CJK text, but hey. Since images and links are also double-brackets in CommonMark, only supporting a `[]{}` / `[]【】` syntax wouldn’t be too bad.

> [@amclees](#):
>
> It might be worth pattern matching the text in the rt with the base text for Japanese.  
> […]  
> However, this adds a lot of potentially unnecessary bloat to a fairly simple feature and doesn’t really apply outside Japanese.

I’m also a bit apprehensive about this one. It’s sort of inconsistent. What if you wanted to write `<ruby>振り向く<rt>ふりむく</rt></ruby>`? Having that matching thing there would make that impossible. It’s also a kind of strange exception for the otherwise completely unambiguous bracket set syntax.

> [@amclees](#):
>
> Escaping 【】 doesn’t seem to be standard

What do you mean by that?

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