Corpora: non-alphabetic language databases

[Avryl2 at aol.com]

Dear Listserve members,
     I was wondering if you might be able to help me out with the following
questions:
     How are databases organized, and pattern searches done in transcriptions
made with non-alphabetic written languages like Chinese, Japanese, and
Korean?  Has anyone considered whether by any chance what is done with these
languages can tell us anything that can be useful as we stuggle to find
better ways of analyzing but also transcribing/notating signed languages?
     Thanks very much.

Paula Bramante