Reading the language difficulty thread generated this random question. As my Chinese literacy approaches the semi-literate toddler level, I’ve noticed that some of the kanji I see in Japanese media looks like simplified characters.
Were the Japanese simplifications just incorporated by the mainland, did things go the other way or are there just a handful of common simplifications?
Yes, but some characters that are simplified in Japanese are simplified a different way in Chinese, e.g. fa 發. Taiwanese people quite often use the Japanese simplified version of that character in their handwriting. The Chinese simplification of 發 (发) is based on the “grass” (cursive) script and is also used for 髮 (hair).
The Chinese simplification goes far beyond the Japanese, as you probably realise.
Dear all,
Which mainland simplified characters were adopted from Japanese?
Kobo-Daishi, PLLA.
Here are some (hoping they can be displayed properly):
会, 虫, 国, 声, 体, 台, 昼, 当, 点, 同, 麦, 来, 里, 医, 温, 向, 号, 写, 面, 礼, 变, 学
Traditional Chinese eqivalents:
會、蟲、國、聲、體、臺、？oops, don’t know that one、當、衕、麥、來、裡、醫、溫、嚮 or 曏、號、寫、麵、禮、變、學
(The fact that they are the same in Japanese and Chinese does not necessarily mean that they were adopted by China from Japan- they could be simplifications (俗字) that were previously in popular use in China (for writing but not in print) and adopted by the Japanese.)
Juba-
Duo Xie for the answer.
Here are some (hoping they can be displayed properly):
会, 虫, 国, 声, 体, 台, 昼, 当, 点, 同, 麦, 来, 里, 医, 温, 向, 号, 写, 面, 礼, 变, 学
Traditional Chinese eqivalents:
會、蟲、國、聲、體、臺、？oops, don’t know that one、當、衕、麥、來、裡、醫、溫、嚮 or 曏、號、寫、麵、禮、變、學
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Hm, some of the above are not simplified versions but just other ways to write the same word (with the same pronounciation in mandarin).
Both 台 and 臺 (tai) are used inside Taiwan (for railway 臺 is used). I don’t think 台 is a simplified form of 臺 but just another way to write it. The character existed before the cultural revolution (and thats what’s refered to ‘simplified’ these days no?).
The radical is 至 for 臺(zhi4, meaning arriving) while the radical for 台 is 台.
The character 儓 (combination of 木,mu = tree) is still used in the PRC even if many dictionaries falsly show the simplified form as 台.
国 means empire (existed before cultural revolution), while 國 is another alternate form representing country (there is also 圀 (used in Korea).
One has to be careful as just putting japanse kanji and chinese hanzi next to each other as it doesn’t always work out like it should. Some characters look the exact same but they have a very diffrent meaning. Others look almost the same, have the same meaning but maybe one stroke or two strokes are in another direction.
Its very easy to find these similiarities and they exist all over asia in various forms. It depends on the sometimes perverse variations dictionaries propose what would be the right way to translate it. There are many mistakes in Unicode too (even in the 3000 most frequent used characters).