Shinjitai (Japanese:新字体,"new character form") are the simplified forms of kanji used in Japan since the promulgation of the TōyōKanji List in 1946. Some of the new forms found in shinjitai are also found in simplified Chinese characters,but shinjitai is generally not as extensive in the scope of its modification.
Shinjitai were created by reducing the number of strokes in kyūjitai ("old character form") or seiji (正字,"proper/correct characters"),which is unsimplified kanji (usually similar to traditional Chinese characters). This simplification was achieved through a process (similar to that of simplified Chinese) of either replacing the onpu (音符,"sound mark") indicating the On reading with another onpu of the same On reading with fewer strokes,or replacing a complex component of a character with a simpler one.
There have been a few stages of simplifications made since the 1950s,but the only changes that became official were the changes in the JōyōKanji List in 1981 and 2010.[1]
Background
The following forms were established as a result of the post-war character reforms. Many were based on widely used handwritten abbreviations (略字,ryakuji) from the prewar era.[2]
In 332 cases,characters in the new standard have fewer strokes than old forms,in 14 cases they have the same number,and in 11 cases they have one more stroke. The most drastic simplification was 廳→庁,removing 20 strokes.[3]
The simplification in shinjitai were only officially applied to characters in the Tōyōand JōyōKanji Lists,with the kyūjitai forms remaining the official forms of Hyōgaiji (表外字,characters not included in the Tōyōand JōyōKanji Lists). For example,the character 擧 (KYO,agaru,ageru;raise [an example]) was simplified as 挙,but the character 欅 (keyaki;zelkova tree) which also contained 擧,remained unsimplified due to its status as a Hyōgaiji.
Despite this,simplified forms of hyōgaiji do exist in Japanese character sets,and are referred to as extended shinjitai (拡張新字体). However,they are to be seen as unofficial,a position reiterated in the National Language Council's 2000 report on Characters Not Listed in the JōyōKanji Table.
The Asahi Shimbun newspaper is thorough in its simplification of hyōgaiji,and its in-house simplifications are called Asahi characters. For example,痙攣 (KEIREN;cramp,spasm,convulsion) is simplified following the model of 經→経 and 攣→挛. This is also said to have been done because in the age of typewriter-based printing,more complicated kanji could not be clearly printed.
The Japanese Industrial Standards (JIS) contain numerous simplified forms of Kanji following the model of the shinjitai simplifications,such as 﨔 (the simplified form of 欅);many of these are included in Unicode,but are not present in most kanji character sets.
Ryakuji for handwriting use,such as the abbreviations for 門 (in simplified Chinese,this abbreviation,门,has become official) and 第 (which exists in Unicode as 㐧[4]) are not a part of the shinjitai reforms and therefore do not carry official status.
Standardization and unification of character forms
Characters in which there were two or more variants were standardized under one form. The character 島 (TŌ,shima;island) also had the variant forms 嶋 (still seen in proper names) and 嶌,but only the 島 form became standard. The 辶radical was previously printed with two dots (as in the hyōgaiji 逞) but was written with one (as in 道),so the written form with one dot became standard. The upper 丷portion of the characters 半,尊, and 平 was previously printed as 八and written 丷(as in the aforementioned examples),but the old printed form is still seen in the hyōgaiji characters 絆 and 鮃. The character 青 (SEI,SHŌ,ao;blue) was once printed as 靑 but written as 青,so the written form became standard;the old printed form is still found in the standard form in hyōgaiji characters such as 鯖 and 蜻,but 青 is used in some fonts.
Change of character indicating On reading
Characters of the keisei moji (形声文字) group each contain a semantic component and a phonetic component. A choice was made to replace the phonetic parts with homophones which had fewer strokes. For example,圍 was changed to 囲,because 韋 and 井 were homophones.
Other simplifications of this method include 竊→窃,廳→庁,擔→担. There are also colloquial handwritten simplifications (otherwise known as ryakuji) based on this model,in which various non-kanji symbols are used as onpu,for example 魔 (MA;demon) [simplification:⿸广マ,广+マ{Katakanama}],慶 (KEI;jubilation) [⿸广K,广+K],藤 (TŌ,fuji;wisteria) [⿱艹ト,艹+ト{Katakana to}],and 機 (KI;machine,opportunity) [⿰木キ,木+キ{Katakana ki}].
Adoption of variant characters
In some cases a standard character was replaced by a variant character that neither is a graphical variant nor shares an On reading,but had a historical basis for standardisation. Examples include 證→証 and 燈→灯,replacing 登→正 and 登→丁 respectively. In both cases the variant character had a different meaning and reading but was adopted due to its lower stroke count anyway.
Removal of components
Some kanji were simplified by removing entire components. For example,
In five basic cases and six derivations for a total of eleven cases,kanji were modified by adding a stroke,thereby rendering the composition more regular:
步→歩 (涉→渉,頻→頻) –the bottom component becomes the common 少. However,the character 捗was not modified (Compare with the section "Inconsistencies").
賓→賓 –similarly
卷→巻 (圈→圏) –the bottom becomes 己
綠→緑 (錄→録) –the top right becomes 彐
免(勉,晚→晩) –formerly the middle stroke was part of the lower left stroke,now these are separate,so the lower two strokes form the common 儿
卑(碑) –formerly the small stroke at upper left of 十 was part of the vertical stroke in 田,but now it is a separate stroke.
Inconsistencies
Simplification was not carried out uniformly. Firstly,only a select group of characters (the common jōyōkanji) was simplified,with characters outside this group (the hyōgaiji) generally retaining their earlier form. For example,賣,續 and 讀 (with the right-side element in the latter two not being identical,but merely graphically similar) were simplified as 売,続,and 読,respectively,but the hyōgaiji 贖,犢 and 牘, which contain the same element (𧶠),were kept in use in their unsimplified variants.
Secondly,even when a simplification was done in some characters within this group,the analogous simplification was not applied to all characters. For instance,the character 龍,meaning "dragon",was simplified in isolation and in some compound characters,but not others. The character itself was simplified to 竜,as was the compound character 瀧 ("waterfall") →滝;however,it was not simplified in the characters 襲 ("attack") and 籠 ("basket"),although an extended shinjitai variant,篭,exists for the latter,and is used in practice rather often over the official variant,for instance in 篭手 vs. 籠手 ("gauntlet"). Note that despite simplification 龍can still be found in Japanese.
Conversely,the character 貫 ("pierce") was not simplified,nor was the compound character 慣 ("accustomed"),but in the other compound character 實 it was simplified,resulting in 実 ("truth").
Similarly,卒 ("graduate") has been kept unsimplified in isolation,but in compounds has been simplified to 卆,such as 醉 to 酔 "drunk";專 has been simplified to 云 in some characters,such as 傳 to 伝 ("transmit"),and 轉 to 転 ("revolve"),but it takes a different form in 團,where instead of changing the phonetic element in a regular manner to get the expected 囩it is shortened to the meaningless component 寸,producing 団.
The latest 2010 jōyōkanji reform has added additional inconsistencies in this regard as in some instances radicals that were previously uniformly simplified across the jōyōset now first appeared in their traditional variants in some of the new jōyōcharacters;contrary to prior practice no new simplifications of characters have been carried out,likely in consideration of established JIS character set use spanning decades at this point. Compare 飮 →飲 ("drink") to 2010 jōyō餌 ("fodder,bait"),or 錢 →銭 ("coin") to 2010 jōyō箋 ("label"). For the latter an analogically simplified 䇳 character does exist,but was likely ignored due to having no history of use in Japanese character sets. On the other hand,former extended shinjitai 艶 ("luster") has been added in favor of 艷.
Nevertheless,the guidelines published by the Japanese government explicitly permit simplification in handwriting,and do not object to use of alternate characters in electronic text.[5]
Simplifications in jōyōand jinmeiyōkanji
In the 2,136 jōyōkanji,there are 364 pairs of simplified and traditional characters. The kanji 弁 is used to simplify three different traditional kanji (辨,瓣,and 辯). Of these 364 traditional characters,212 are still used as jinmeiyōkanji in names. The jinmeiyōkanji List also includes 631 kanji that are not elements of the jōyōKanji List;18 of them have a variant. For a list of traditional and modern forms of jōyōand jinmeiyōkanji,see Kyūjitai.
Traditional characters that may cause problems displaying
Due to Han unification,some shinjitai characters are unified with their kyūjitai counterparts. Within the jōyōkanji,there are 62 characters whose kyūjitai forms may cause problems displaying:
These characters are Unicode CJK Unified Ideographs for which the old form (kyūjitai) and the new form (shinjitai) have been unified under the Unicode standard. Although the old and new forms are distinguished under the JIS X 0213 standard,the old forms map to Unicode CJK Compatibility Ideographs which are considered by Unicode to be canonically equivalent to the new forms,and may not be distinguished by user agents. Therefore,depending on the user environment,it may not be possible to see the distinction between old and new forms of the characters. In particular,all Unicode normalization methods merge the old characters with the new ones.
蘒(U+8612),which is not jōyō,is displayed as an (extended) shinjitai character;its kyūjitai counterpart is considered as a duplicate,and is thus not unified,even though some fonts such as Source Han Sans may treat it as unified.
Controversies
Like one of the controversial aspects of simplified Chinese,some shinjitai were originally separate characters with different meanings. For example,the kanji 藝 (GEI;performance,accomplishment) was simplified to 芸,but 芸 was originally a separate character read with the On reading UN. Many of the original characters which have become merged are no longer used in modern Japanese:for example,豫 (YO,arakaji(me);in advance) and 餘 (YO,ama(ri);excess) were merged with 予 and 余,respectively,both archaic kanji for the first person pronoun "I". However,芸 poses a problem,in that Japan's first public library,Untei (芸亭) (built during the Nara Period),uses this character. This character also has significance in classical Japanese literature,and Japanese history books have had to distinguish between the two by writing UN using the old form of the 艹radical,(艸).
Differences in simplification between Chinese and Japanese
Mainland China, Singapore, Malaysia and Japan simplified their writing systems independently from each other. After World War II, poor relations prevented cooperation between the two nations. Traditional Chinese characters are still officially used in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, South Korea (as a supplement to Hangul, but they are no longer used in North Korea), and by many overseas Chinese.
In Chinese, many more characters were simplified than in Japanese; some characters were simplified only in the one language, but not in the other; other characters were simplified in the same way in both languages, others in different ways. This means that those who want to learn the writing systems of both Chinese and Japanese must sometimes learn three different variations of one character: traditional Chinese, simplified Chinese, and modern Japanese (e.g.龍 - 龙 - 竜 for "dragon").
traditional Chinese
simplified Chinese
modern Japanese
meaning
No simplification in either language Same Unicode character but appearance may vary with script; see Han unification
Kanji are the logographic Chinese characters adapted from the Chinese script used in the writing of Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are still used, along with the subsequently-derived syllabic scripts of hiragana and katakana. The characters have Japanese pronunciations; most have two, with one based on the Chinese sound. A few characters were invented in Japan by constructing character components derived from other Chinese characters. After the Meiji Restoration, Japan made its own efforts to simplify the characters, now known as shinjitai, by a process similar to China's simplification efforts, with the intention to increase literacy among the common folk. Since the 1920s, the Japanese government has published character lists periodically to help direct the education of its citizenry through the myriad Chinese characters that exist. There are nearly 3,000 kanji used in Japanese names and in common communication.
Han unification is an effort by the authors of Unicode and the Universal Character Set to map multiple character sets of the Han characters of the so-called CJK languages into a single set of unified characters. Han characters are a feature shared in common by written Chinese (hanzi), Japanese (kanji), Korean (hanja) and Vietnamese.
Traditional Chinese characters are a standard set of Chinese character forms used to write Chinese languages. In Taiwan, the set of traditional characters is regulated by the Ministry of Education and standardized in the Standard Form of National Characters. These forms were predominant in written Chinese until the middle of the 20th century, when various countries that use Chinese characters began standardizing simplified sets of characters, often with characters that existed before as well-known variants of the predominant forms.
Stroke order is the order in which the strokes of a Chinese character are written. A stroke is a movement of a writing instrument on a writing surface.
The jinmeiyō kanji are a set of 863 Chinese characters known as "name kanji" in English. They are a supplementary list of characters that can legally be used in registered personal names in Japan, despite not being in the official list of "commonly used characters". "Jinmeiyō kanji" is sometimes used to refer to the characters in both the jinmeiyō and jōyō lists because some Japanese names do not require the specified jinmeiyō kanji and are written entirely in jōyō kanji. Hence, jōyō kanji can also be viewed as a subset of jinmeiyō kanji.
In Japanese language, Ryakuji are colloquial simplifications of kanji.
Asahi characters are forms of kanji particular to the Asahi Shimbun newspaper. Unlike Simplified Chinese, where simplifications apply to all characters, the general custom in Japanese publications is to print jōyō/jinmeiyō kanji in simplified shinjitai forms, and to print hyōgaiji using their original, unsimplified kyūjitai forms. For example, the jōyō kanji 齊, 齋, 劑, 濟 are printed in their shinjitai forms 斉, 斎, 剤, 済, but the hyōgaiji 臍, 纃, 薺 remain unsimplified.
Kyūjitai are the traditional forms of kanji. Their simplified counterparts are shinjitai. Some of the simplified characters arose centuries ago and were in everyday use in both China and Japan, but they were considered inelegant, even uncouth. After World War II, simplified character forms were made official in both these countries.
Chinese characters may have several variant forms—visually distinct glyphs that represent the same underlying meaning and pronunciation. Variants of a given character are allographs of one another, and many are directly analogous to allographs present in the English alphabet, such as the double-storey ⟨a⟩ and single-storey ⟨ɑ⟩ variants of the letter A, with the latter more commonly appearing in handwriting. Some contexts require usage of specific variants.
Radical 213 meaning "turtle" is one of only two of the 214 Kangxi radicals that are composed of 16 strokes.
Hyōgaiji, also known as hyōgai kanji (表外漢字), is a term for Japanese kanji outside the two major lists of jōyō kanji, which are taught in primary and secondary school, and the jinmeiyō kanji, which are additional kanji that are officially allowed for use in personal names. The term jōyōgai kanji (常用外漢字) is also encountered, but it designates all the kanji outside the list of jōyō kanji, including the jinmeiyō kanji.
Extended shinjitai is the extension of the shinjitai. They are the simplified versions of some of the hyōgaiji. They are unofficial characters; the official forms of these hyōgaiji are still kyūjitai.
Radical 140 or radical grass (艸部) meaning 'grass' is one of 29 of the 214 Kangxi radicals that are composed of 6 strokes. It transforms into 艹 when appearing at the top of a character or component. In the Kangxi Dictionary and in modern standard Traditional Chinese as used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, 艹 consists of four strokes, while in Simplified Chinese and modern Japanese, 艹 consists of three strokes.
Radical 113 or radical spirit (示部) meaning ancestor or veneration is number 113 out of the 214 Kangxi radicals. It is one of the 23 radicals composed of 5 strokes. When appearing at the left side of a character, the radical transforms into 礻 in modern Chinese and Japanese jōyō kanji.
Radical 63 or radical door (戶部) meaning "door" is one of the 34 Kangxi radicals composed of 4 strokes.
Radical 87 or radical claw (爪部) meaning "claw", "nail" or "talon" is one of the 34 Kangxi radicals composed of 4 strokes.
Radical 162 or radical walk (辵部) meaning "walk" is one of the 20 Kangxi radicals composed of 7 strokes. When used as a component, this radical character transforms into ⻍, ⻌, or ⻎.
Differences between shinjitai and simplified characters in the Japanese and Chinese languages exist.
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