Variant Chinese characters
Variant character | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Hán-Nôm 𡨸異體 | | ||||
Korean name | |||||
Hangul | 이체자 | ||||
| |||||
Japanese name | |||||
Kanji | 異体字 | ||||
|
Nature of variants
Before the 20th century, variation in the shape of characters was ubiquitous, a dynamic which continued after the invention of
New variants also result from larger shifts in the writing system as a whole, such as the process of libian and liding that resulted in the clerical script. According to the palaeographer Qiu Xigui, the broadest trend in the evolution of Chinese characters over their history has been simplification, both in graphical shape (字形; zìxíng), the "external appearances of individual graphs", and in graphical form (字体; 字體; zìtǐ), "overall changes in the distinguishing features of graphic[al] shape and calligraphic style, [...] in most cases refer[ring] to rather obvious and rather substantial changes".[2] Libian often involved significant omissions, additions, or transmutations of the forms used by Qin small seal script, while liding is the direct regularization and linearization of shapes to convert them into clerical forms while preserving their original structure. For example, the character for 'year' was underwent liding to the clerical script form 秊, while the same character after undergoing libian resulted in the orthodox form 年. Similarly, libian and liding created the two distinct characters 虎 and 乕 for 'tiger'.
There are variants that arise through the use of different radicals to refer to specific definitions of a polysemous character. For instance, the character 雕 could mean either 'a type of hawk' or 'carve'. For the former, the variant 鵰 with the ⿃ 'BIRD' radical is sometimes employed, while for the latter the variant 琱 with the ⽟ 'JADE' radical is sometimes used.
In rare cases, two characters in ancient Chinese with similar meanings can be confused and conflated if their modern Chinese readings have merged, for example, 飢 and 饑, are both read as jī and mean 'famine', used interchangeably in the modern language, even though 飢 meant 'insufficient food to satiate', and 饑 meant 'famine' in Old Chinese. The two characters formerly belonged to two different Old Chinese rime groups (脂 and 微 groups, respectively) and could not possibly have had the same pronunciation back then. A similar situation is responsible for the existence of variants of the particle 於 'in' which had the ancient form 于, now used as its simplified form. In each case above, variants were merged into single simplified forms.
Orthodoxy
Character forms that are most orthodox are known as orthodox variants (正字; zhèngzì), which is sometimes taken as mean the forms present in the
Orthodox and vulgar forms may only differ by the length or location of individual strokes, whether certain strokes intersect, or the presence or absence of minor strokes (dots). These are often not considered to amount to being discrete variants. For instance, 述 is the new form of the character with traditional orthography 述 'recount', 'describe'. As another example, the surname 吴, also the name of an ancient state, is the 'new character shape' form of the character traditionally written 吳.
Regional standards
Character variant exist throughout every writing system that uses Chinese characters, including
The standard character forms of each region are described in:
- The Table of General Standard Chinese Characters for mainland China
- The List of Graphemes of Commonly-Used Chinese Characters for Hong Kong
- The Standard Form of National Characters for Taiwan
- The list of jōyō kanji for Japan
- The Kangxi Dictionary in Korea
Use in computing
Chinese | Japanese | Korean | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
Mainland | Taiwan | Hong Kong | ||
戶戸户 | 戶戸户 | 戶戸户 | 戶戸户 | 戶戸户 |
爲為为 | 爲為为 | 爲為为 | 爲為为 | 爲為为 |
強强 | 強强 | 強强 | 強强 | 強强 |
畫畵画 | 畫畵画 | 畫畵画 | 畫畵画 | 畫畵画 |
線綫线 | 線綫线 | 線綫线 | 線綫线 | 線綫线 |
匯滙 | 匯滙 | 匯滙 | 匯滙 | 匯滙 |
裏裡 | 裏裡 | 裏裡 | 裏裡 | 裏裡 |
夜亱 | 夜亱 | 夜亱 | 夜亱 | 夜亱 |
龜亀龟 | 龜亀龟 | 龜亀龟 | 龜亀龟 | 龜亀龟 |
The following examples have the same code points, but different language tags.
Chinese | Japanese | Korean | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
Mainland | Taiwan | Hong Kong | ||
刃 | 刃 | 刃 | 刃 | 刃 |
令 | 令 | 令 | 令 | 令 |
毒 | 毒 | 毒 | 毒 | 毒 |
骨 | 骨 | 骨 | 骨 | 骨 |
縣 | 縣 | 縣 | 縣 | 縣 |
誤 | 誤 | 誤 | 誤 | 誤 |
船 | 船 | 船 | 船 | 船 |
述 | 述 | 述 | 述 | 述 |
煙 | 煙 | 煙 | 煙 | 煙 |
贈 | 贈 | 贈 | 贈 | 贈 |
雪 | 雪 | 雪 | 雪 | 雪 |
及 | 及 | 及 | 及 | 及 |
角 | 角 | 角 | 角 | 角 |
條 | 條 | 條 | 條 | 條 |
扁 | 扁 | 扁 | 扁 | 扁 |
低 | 低 | 低 | 低 | 低 |
See also
- Ryakuji – Form of shorthand for writing kanji
- Z-variant – Glyphs with minor typographical differences
Notes
- ^ 玄 is not written completely in the Kangxi Dictionary due to the naming taboo prohibiting writing the characters of an Emperor's given name. 玄, as well as all compounds using it as a component, lack the final dot stroke. The final vertical stroke in 燁 is also omitted.
References
Citations
- ^ Bökset 2006, p. 19.
- ^ Qiu 2000, pp. 44–45.
Works cited
- Bökset, Roar (2006), Long Story of Short Forms: The Evolution of Simplified Chinese Characters (PDF), Stockholm East Asian Monographs, vol. 11, Stockholm University, ISBN 978-9-162-86832-1, archived(PDF) from the original on 2021-12-02, retrieved 2024-03-12
- ISBN 978-1-557-29071-7
- 異體字字典 [Dictionary of Chinese Character Variants] (in Chinese), Academica Sinica, 2017