Talk:Shinjitai

Explanation needed
It isn't explained whether there was any interaction between the developers of Shinjitai and the developers of the simplified Chinese characters. It also should be explained how it is that some of the shinjitai are the same as the simplified Chinese characters--is it just coincidence, as well as the fact that both systems drew on cursive forms already in informal use? Thanks in advance for adding these explanations. Badagnani (talk) 23:42, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * To the best of my knowlwdge, there was no interaction whatsover. Bear in mind that both groups of people were working from a common base, and many of the simplifications had been around for centuries. I have seen a late 18th century publication by a French Sinologist which listed sets of common simplifications, and many of the 新字体 were there. JimBreen (talk) 01:54, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

That's an interesting opinion, but one that is unsourced. Badagnani (talk) 02:19, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Consistency
Are Shinjitai used consistently? Why Kyūjitai is still in modern use in Japan? Kanji 国 is often used interchangeably with 國, 竜 with 龍 (and derivatives)? I don't think it's by mistake. It's quite different from simplified/traditional Chinese. It's just one or the other. The exception would be when there are more than one contributor or the person doesn't know what is the correct version. Also, in Taiwan, some shortcuts are used: simplified: 台湾 but traditional allows both 臺灣 and 台灣. --Atitarev (talk) 23:55, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Kyūjitai are today used in personal names/proper nouns, for stylistic reasons (eg archaicism), and in reproductions of historical texts. The main reasons Kyūjitai are still used in Japan is that they were not banned after the postwar reforms, and are still tolerated in personal names (see article).--Ryoske (talk) 09:17, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Missing radicals in ateji synonyms but not shinjitai!
I have found that both 濠洲 and 豪州 have been used to write one of the Japanese names for Australia (ごうしゅう, Gōshū). Now it appears that 豪州 is a simplified form of 濠洲 with the water radical omitted from each character, yet in the lists I have been able to find, neither 濠 nor 洲 are kyūjitai and neither 豪州 are shinjitai. I think I have even seen a mixed form where one character has the water radical and the other does not.

I assume that the character 濠 is related to its use in the old ateji for Australia, 濠太剌利 so 豪 must be the newer form.

Is this an undocumented case of shinjitai? Is it extended shinjitai?

I see that both the forms without the water radical, 豪 and 州, are included in the Joyo kanji, but that the forms with the water radical, 濠 and 洲, are not.

Is there another process similar to Shinjitai where similar characters are used in place of characters not in Joyo? If so does it have a name or nickname and is it documented on Wikipedia or elsewhere?

Could it be a technology issue? Perhaps older Japanese fonts or encodings or IMEs included just the Joyo or Tojo kanji.

My Windows XP IME includes both forms for ごう with 豪 before 濠　and both forms for しゅう with 州 before 洲, but for ごうしゅう it gives 豪州 as the only possibility.

Could anybody provide an approximate timeline as to when each variant of Gōshū came into use, whether it was part of a standard or reform, if the process causing it has a name or Wikipedia article, or list other terms or characters affected by the same mechanism? &mdash; Hippietrail (talk) 04:07, 17 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I notice that both 洲 and 州 were used as man'yōgana for す/ス/su but I cannot find 濠 or 豪 in man'yōgana tables. &mdash; Hippietrail (talk) 04:48, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Being separate characters rather than shinjitai, these are rather examples of non-Tōyō characters being replaced with Tōyō characters.--Ryoske (talk) 07:52, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks Ryoske. I've added a translation request for an English version of that article. At least if I did it right I have (-: &mdash; Hippietrail (talk) 09:32, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
 * In fact this phenomenon is covered at Japanese_script_reform where it is referred to as 書きかえ (kakikae) but as it does not cover the case of 濠洲 and 豪州 it is obviously not complete. I think a separate article is warranted and preferably a complete table of such substitutions or at least a pointer to such a table existing elsewhere on the Internet. &mdash; Hippietrail (talk) 14:09, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Simplifications based on Chinese pronunciation
> Use of variant character > In some cases a complex character was replaced to a simpler character that is neither a graphical variant nor shares an On reading, but had traditionally been used as a variant. Examples include 證 → 証 and 燈 → 灯,

My Japanese is terrible and my Mandarin is just okay, but I think that these are 形聲 characters in Chinese, and that the simplification is clearly based on the pronunciation of the right half (登 deng, 正 zheng, 丁 ding). So this is actually very similar to the On-pu based simplification in the preceding paragraph, it's not like these are random replacements that just happened to use less strokes. Might be worth pointing out if anyone can find a source for that. (FWIW the simplification in the PRC is exactly the same for these two characters, except that the 言 radical was simplified as well.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.91.244.122 (talk) 21:38, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

The simplification of these two words have existed long before standardizing Mandarin to be the National Language (let alone Putonghua). 証 and 灯 have existed to be re-used as a simpler form of 證 and 燈 at least before Qing Dynasty in China. The first was likely chosen for convenience, and the second due to taboo (in Qing Dynasty, it was still taboo to write characters that were in the names of officials), both very probably fitting exactly with the pronunciations at that time. By the time the simpler variants were officially recognized by Japan, it is likely that they have been similarly in common use already. It seems highly unlikely that they borrowed from the Chinese pronunciations. The PRC standardization of this simplification didn't exist yet either.42.98.40.119 (talk) 17:44, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

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