lead=yes are the simplified forms of kanji used in Japan since the promulgation of the tōyō kanji 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 "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 jōyō kanji list in 1981 and 2010.
くろがね | 'iron' |
あた(える) | 'give' |
まな(ぶ) | 'study' |
からだ | 'body' |
pedestal | |
くに | 'country', 'kingdom', 'nation' |
せき | 'gate' |
うつ(す) | 'copy' |
ひろ(い) | 'expansive', 'wide' |
'(ontological) form' | |
かえ(る) | return |
は | tooth |
ある(く) | walk |
まる(い) | 'circle', 'Japanese yen'; 'round', 'circular' |
く | '(administrative) ward' |
Despite this, simplified forms of hyōgaiji do exist in Japanese character sets, and are referred to as 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 Jōyō Kanji 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 ) are not a part of the shinjitai reforms and therefore do not carry official status.
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:, 慶 ( KEI; jubilation) ⿸广K,, 藤 ( TŌ, fuji; wisteria) ⿱艹ト,, and 機 ( KI; machine, opportunity) ⿰木キ,.
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 , meaning "dragon", was simplified in isolation and in some compound characters, but not others. The character itself was simplified to , as was the compound character ("waterfall") → ; however, it was not simplified in the characters ("attack") and ("basket"), although an extended shinjitai variant, , exists for the latter, and is used in practice rather often over the official variant, for instance in vs. ("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 jōyō kanji reform has added additional inconsistencies in this regard as in some instances radicals that were previously uniformly simplified across the jōyō set now first appeared in their traditional variants in some of the new jōyō characters; 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.
海 社 勉 暑 漢 神 福 練 者 都 器 殺 祝 節 梅 類 祖 勤 穀 視 署 層 著 諸 難 朗 欄 廊 虜 隆 塚 祥 侮 僧 免 卑 喝 嘆 塀 墨 悔 慨 憎 懲 敏 既 煮 碑 祉 祈 禍 突 繁 臭 褐 謁 謹 賓 贈 逸 響 頻
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.
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. for "dragon").
No simplification in either language | 悲 | 悲 | 悲 | sad |
Same simplification in both languages | 獻 | 献 | 献 | offer |
Simplified in Chinese only | 緊 | 紧 | 緊 | tight |
Simplified in Japanese only | 惠 | 惠 | 恵 | benefit |
Different simplifications in Chinese and Japanese | 棧 | 栈 | 桟 | stack |
Chinese simplification more drastic | 驅 | 驱 | 駆 | drive |
Japanese simplification more drastic | 圓 | 圆 | 円 | round |
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