Traditional to Simplified Conversion

[andrewkooi]

One of the things that befuddles me is when the conversion from Traditional Chinese characters to Simplified Chinese characters produces a Simplified Chinese character which looks exactly the same as the Traditional, but is written the opposite way.

For example:

夠gòu － Traditional Chinese

够gòu － Simplified Chinese

Has anyone got any idea why the Simplified Chinese character is written this way? Thanx in advance for your help.

[peekay]

See: http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/2-favourite-chinese-musician2940

I don't think there was a conscious decision to 'simplify' the character by swapping the two sides. As you say, this character doesn't appear in the lists of simplified characters published in the Mainland, and this is more likely to be a case where two variant forms have existed for a long time. It is just that 够 has become the standard form in Mainland China, whereas 夠 has ended up being the more usual one in traditional characters.

[renzhe]

Both 夠 and 够 are present in the Kangxi dictionary, so they both predate the simplification process by a long time. So, like Jose said, they were both accepted variants of the same character, but a different one "won out" in the Mainland and abroad.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/够

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/夠

Similar thing happened with 泪 and 淚, and 异 and 異. though in these two cases the use of the simpler character is indeed officially mandated in the PRC.

[skylee]

Re 夠 and 够. I was reading some regulations the other day and to my GREAT surprise (I seldom read the Chinese version) and GREAT dismay the Chinese version 竟然 used 够 instead of 夠. I didn't think that 够 was even accepted in HK ......