 |
| Japanese writing |
|---|
| Components |
| Uses |
| Transliteration |
Extendedshinjitai (Japanese:拡張新字体,Hepburn:kakuchō shinjitai;lit. 'extended new character form') is the extension of theshinjitai (officially simplifiedkanji). They are the simplified versions of some of thehyōgaiji (表外字; kanji not included in thejōyō kanji list). They are unofficial characters; the official forms of thesehyōgaiji are stillkyūjitai (traditional characters).
When the 1,850 character-longtōyō kanji list was produced in 1949, many characters were simplified from their original forms, and the new simpler forms became the standard kanji used in Japanese writing. For instance, the characters學,國, and體 became学,国, and体, respectively. Thejōyō kanji list, issued in 1981, contained additional simplifications such as罐,螢, and龍 becoming缶,蛍, and竜. In addition, the character燈, which had already been included during the formation of thetōyō kanji list, became灯. A total of 357 characters were reformed fromkyūjitai (old character form) to becomeshinjitai (new character form) when thejōyō kanji list was created (辨,瓣, and辯 were merged into a single character:弁, bringing the total number of newshinjitai down to 355).
However, as a result of adopting simplified characters, kanji that shared the same structural elements (radicals or otherphono-semantic compounds) were not all simplified in the same way. For instance,賣,續, and讀, which were included in the list, were simplified as売,続, and読, although the first one is not the same component but simply looks similar.On the other hand, thehyōgaiji贖,犢, and牘 – which contain the same element (𧶠) as the latter two of the three previous kanji – were not likewise given simplified counterparts. This problem arose from reforming only the most common characters rather than decomposing all characters into radicals and other constructs. This was done systematically forsimplified Chinese characters, although even in there many exceptions to the rule exist.
TheAsahi Shimbun newspaper developed its own script known asAsahi characters, which applied the rationale of simplification to characters other thanjōyō kanji. In this script, the right element of the three aforementioned unsimplified characters (贖,犢, and牘) were all simplified to 売. Characters that were simplified in this way are called extendedshinjitai, as simplification was extended to characters outside of thejōyō kanji list.
Extendedshinjitai was also implemented intoJIS kanji. The first version of JIS (JIS C 6226-1978), created in 1978, contained 10 characters that were simplified in this way, such as噓 and叛.
JIS X 0208, created in 1983, was the first JIS character set to extensively use extendedshinjitai, adopting simplifications for a large number of previously unsimplified characters. In total, 299 characters such as鴎 (鷗),涜 (瀆),溌 (潑),逢,飴 (or 301 characters, when including曾 and訛) were simplified from their original forms. Simplified forms had never been used in printing these characters prior to this reform. However, the character set became subject to criticism when it was revealed that the character鷗 in the name "森鷗外" (Mori Ōgai, a famous Japanese poet and novelist) could only be represented inword processors in its simplified form (鴎).
| Formal | Extended | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 鷽 | 鴬 | 鷽 (uso,bullfinch) and鶯 (uguisu,Japanese bush warbler) are different species of birds, but both kanji share the same glyph within the extendedshinjitai, namely鴬.[1] Insimplified Chinese, the character of鷽 becomes鸴, whereas鶯 is莺. |
| 鶯 | ||
| 攪 | 撹 | Within theHyōgai Kanji Jitaihyō (表外漢字字体表), the traditional form攪 was recognized as a standard printed font (印刷標準字体), while撹 was classified as a simplified conventional font (簡易慣用字体). |
| 摑* | 掴 | |
| 簞 | 箪 | |
| 瀆* | 涜 | |
| 儘 | 侭 | 儘 and盡 are merged to尽 in simplified Chinese. |
| 藪 | 薮 | |
| 籠 | 篭 |
Established in 1990, the JIS X 0212 set of auxiliary characters supplemented the previous character set by including both the traditional and simplified forms of certain characters. For instance, the traditional鷗,瀆, and潑 characters were included, in addition to the simplified鴎,涜, and溌 characters. However, usage of these auxiliary characters in theShift JIS computer encoding was not taken into consideration, and most word processors remained unable to display these traditional characters. The Japanese Language Council meeting of 1992 confirmed the need for a unified character set that could be used in all computers and word processors.
Released in February 2000, theJIS X 0213-2000 character set was presented as a solution to the problems of the previous character set, as the Shift JIS encoding was expanded to re-include traditional characters such as鷗,瀆, and潑. In December of the same year, the Japanese Language Council compiled a list of 22 widely used extendedshinjitai, designated askan'ikanyōjitai (簡易慣用字体, simple common-use character forms), and approved their use in place of their traditional variants in print.[2]
JIS X 0213-2004 (released in 2004) made minor modifications to the script, changing character shapes and strokes. For characters that are not in thejōyō kanji list, theshinnyō radical (⻌) was changed from having a single dot into a double-dot variant. TheWindows Vistaoperating system, released in January 2007, conformed to these modifications, but confusion resulted in cases where the single dot was automatically changed to double dots in, for instance, surnames written using the character辻.
TheAsahi Shimbun newspaper also modified its characters to conform to the new standards, and altered theirAsahi characters in January 2007.
In the latest 2010 jōyō reform, taking the aforementioned⻌ radical as an example, the previous logic of one-dot corresponding to jōyō and two-dot to non-jōyō was eliminated, as for instance謎 ("riddle") is now a jōyō kanji. This reform also clashes with established JIS X 0208 use, as in some cases less common unsimplified characters have been elevated to jōyō status in favor of variant characters with established use - for instance, as per the official jōyō table, the second character in装填 ("reload") should be塡. For the most part unsimplified characters have been added to the jōyō table with this reform, except for three previous simplified forms (曽,痩 and麺), and some extendedshinjitai like艶 in favor of艷.
Nevertheless, the 2010 guidelines by the Japanese government also explicitly allow simplification in handwriting and do not object to use of alternate characters in electronic text, likely in recognition of established technical standards.[3]