Jiu zixing

Jiu zixing, also known as inherited glyph form, or traditional glyph form, not to be confused with Traditional Chinese, is a traditional orthography of Chinese characters which uses the orthodox character forms, especially the character forms used in print after the development of movable type printing, but before reformation by national standardization. Jiu zixing formed in the Ming Dynasty, and is also known as Kyūjitai in Japan.

Broadly, jiu zixing refers to all character forms used in printing Chinese before reformation by national standardization, like xin zixing in mainland China, the Standard Form of National Characters in Taiwan, and List of Graphemes of Commonly-Used Chinese Characters in Hong Kong. Jiu zixing is generally the opposite form of the standards. Some representative books that used jiu zixing include Kangxi Dictionary, Zhongwen Da Cidian, Dai Kan-Wa Jiten, Chinese-Korean Dictionary, and Zhonghua Da Zidian.

Scholars have developed several standards for jiu zixing, but there is no single enforced standard. Variations of jiu zixing can be seen in the Kangxi Dictionary, Old Chinese printing forms, Korean Hanja, some printing forms in Taiwan, and MingLiU in Windows 98 and earlier versions; slight differences may occur between different jiu zixing standards. Some open-sourced communities also develop and maintain jiu zixing standards which are either based on or unify other jiu zixing forms from academic research.

Origin
During the woodblock printing era, words were usually carved in handwritten form (regular script) as each woodblock is different, making the work to produce each printed book tedious. The development of wooden movable type during the Song dynasty caused the Chinese characters to take on a more rectangular form following the wood texture. Vertical strokes were thickened to reduce engraving loss, while a small triangle was added at the end of horizontal strokes and the start of vertical strokes to improve the legibility of text even after the pieces are worn out by long-term use. As the character styles started to differ widely from regular script, the calligraphic methods used on regular scripts could not be used on movable type characters and a new distinctive style designated for movable type was born. This style was developed fully during the Ming dynasty, which has now evolved into Ming typefaces.

Comparing movable type and woodblock styles, it can be noticed that movable type characters – which are the basis of jiu zixing today – are different from the random and changing nature of handwritten regular script, and emphasize clear strokes and the beautiful, symmetric structure of characters. Movable type characters also emphasize the philology aspects of Chinese characters more so than regular script.

Kangxi Dictionary
The Kangxi Dictionary is viewed as a standardization of jiu zixing and its character forms are referenced by multiple standards. In Taiwan it can generally mean jiu zixing. This name may also refer to the computer font TypeLand 康熙字典體. The Kangxi Dictionary has a few taboo words, such as 弘 and 玄, which should be corrected in current use.

Standard printing characters in Korea
Character forms depicted in KS X 1001 and KS X 1002 can usually be used as jiu zixing, but some fonts may not adhere to the Kangxi Dictionary. For example, the first stroke of 音 is a wilted dot (or vertical dot, 竖点, ), some components of 儿 are made to 几, etc.

Kyūjitai in Japan
Kyūjitai is the character form used before Japan released the JIS X 0218 standard (later expanded to JIS X 2013). In 2004, the revised version JIS X 0213:2004 changed some character forms back to Kyūjitai. Some characters have two or more forms listed.

Current-generation style
Current-generation style follows jiu zixing forms and styles, but some fonts change the strokes to follow the current standard, becoming xin zixing, and not fully following the character forms of jiu zixing or the Kangxi Dictionary.