小马词典 oddity

[David Wong]

What do you see when you go to this link?

http://www.xiaoma.info/hanzi.php?hz=%E7%9B%B4

I don't see 直 like I expect, but a slightly different character. I attached an image of it. I've tried it with chrome, explorer and firefox.

Wondering if others have the same problem.

[hackinger]

Hi,

yes I have seen that several times and being a beginner I was a bit confused as well. I did assume though, that these are just different

renderings and ignored the issue. See also:

http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/76f4/index.htm

http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/76f4/browsertest.htm

http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/76f4/fontsupport.htm

Cheers

hackinger

[cababunga]

Same character can have a different shape in traditional and simplified Chinese, Japanese and Korean. There may or may not be fonts installed for all of them on your system. The page you referred to doesn't specify the language at all, so your browser picks whatever it thinks is the most appropriate out of what is available. Look at this page to see how the character is rendered on your system when the language is specified: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%9B%B4 .

[hackinger]

xiaoma provides simplified Chinese characters and would show the traditional version as well if it is different. However

for the character in question simplified and traditional versions are the same (All AFAIK).

Cheers

hackinger

[cababunga]

Not according to wiktionary. Did you click on the link?

[hackinger]

Ok got it now, after I removed the dot from your link. (EDIT: The link has meanwhile been corrected).

My xinhua zidian only shows the version without the vertical stroke on the left. It probably ignores the Taiwanese stroke order.

Does that mean in Taiwan one uses (sometimes) the left vertical stroke, but elsewhere the traditional (Chinese) version is written without the vertical stroke?

Anyway, I bookmarked the wiktionary. Thanks for the link.

Cheers

hackinger

[hackinger]

Hi,

back to the original problem. In the upper left of the xiaoma page there is a clickable "change font" symbol. If one selects another font there, e.g. SimSum, one sees the expected Hanzi rendering. Arial Unicode MS shows - among others - the left vertical stroke part. I believe I saw the same issue in Anki once, but I have deleted that deck meanwhile and cannot verify.

Cheers

hackinger

[anonymoose]

On my monitor, the character and the image you posted look the same.

[Glenn]

Mine too. And I thought it might just be me, but I've seen it not that way before too.

[hackinger]

I can get that result too, if I set the font in my Internet Explorer to Arial Unicode MS. I have it set to Simsun.

(In IE go to Tools/Internet Options/Fonts then choose Chinese simplified and select the font.)

It is the same font issue which I mentioned above for the xiaoma web page.

Btw, if you see the vertical stroke part also for the small character in the original post,

then you should see it also on other pages like mdbg.net.

Cheers

hackinger

[Glenn]

I don't. Only here. Strange...

[wedge]

Wow I had no idea that that was the Japanese way of writing 直. I always just assumed it was a stylized font.

I get the Japanese version on alot of different places in my computer, including all browser text boxes, gmail, and pretty much everywhere on Windows.

Does anyone know how to change this? Do I have to use SimSun as my default font everywhere to get the Chinese 直? I don't really like how SimSun displays English.

[David Wong]

Thanks for the clarification. I have seen both forms on Taiwanese TV shows, come to think of it. Did not know the one with the "L" stroke is Japanese. That would make sense, given Taiwan's history.

Wedge, did you enable both Japanese and Chinese input methods/fonts on your computer?

[skylee]

So is it the conclusion that it is a computer font problem?

David Wong, you might find the Taiwan Ministry of Education Variant Dictionary useful. Here is what it says about 直.

This thread reminds me of one of the complaints that I wrote. There is a famous shopping mall in Hong Kong called 置地廣場, but the 場 it uses has two additional strokes (see the attached photo). I suggested the company correct the word, and got a reply that they were sure it was correct.

[Glenn]

Isn't that just an 異體字 of 場, though?

[Edit] Just found this: http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/yitin/frn/frn00084.htm

So it seems it's a variant of 場 when it's read chang2 or chang3, but it can also be read shang1 with a different meaning (which I don't understand completely, but seems to have to do with piles of soil and plowing or something...).

[hackinger]

Hi,

more fun with 直 zhi2:

Since I got myself recently the tome "Cracking the Chinese Puzzles", I looked the character up there: "A is the modern convenient way of writing B which is still prevalent, for it was the original pattern." (B is the pattern with the vertical stroke part on the left and A is the simpler pattern.) Harbaugh, Chinese Characters, lists the more complicated pattern B first. The older form B resembles the more curved ancient version shown here: http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterASP/CharacterEtymology.aspx?characterInput=%E7%9B%B4

If Unicode is used, the Japanese and the Chinese character have the same code point( U+76F4) and a given font can only draw it one way, hence the font confusion. Kind of disappointing because that means one cannot easily show both the Japanese and Chinese version together using the same Unicode font.

Traditional and Simplified characters have different Unicode code points if they are drawn differently and therefore they can be distinguished by a Unicode font.

(All AFAIK.)

Cheers

hackinger

[wedge]

Wedge, did you enable both Japanese and Chinese input methods/fonts on your computer?

No I only use English and Simplified Chinese. I tried a few ways to change my font settings. They didn't have the hoped for effect on 直 but did have some unintended effects so I think I'm going to give up. Hopefully there aren't too many other characters that have this confusion!

[cababunga]

It is possible to configure browser to use different fonts for different languages. In Firefox it's done in Preferences/Content/Fonts & Colors/Advanced. If a web page properly specifies language and fonts are properly set up, everything renders as it suppose to. Here is a fragment of my screen

of this page

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%9B%B4

Edited February 28, 2011 at 06:48 PM by cababunga

[jbradfor]

Which fonts do people recommend? In the messages above, I see references to SimSum and Arial Unicode M; which are good? Which are simplified and which are traditional? Is there good source for leaning about these?

I'm on a linux system, for example, and neither of those are installed for me.

[Kobo-Daishi]

I doubt that it has anything to do with Japanese, seeing as according to the Dictionary of Chinese Character Variants put out by the Ministry of Education (Republic of China, Taiwan), the Japanese only ever came up with 85 unique characters out of the 85+ thousand characters ever created.

And none of these character variants are a part of the 85 Japanese creations.

The 85 Japanese created characters are so rare that they're not even included in the jōyō kanji (常用漢字) list promulgated by the Japanese Ministry of Education for daily use.

The character variants that we're talking about have been a part of Chinese for who knows how long.

Kobo.