将 written in different ways

[xianhua]

Would anybody be able to enlighten me as to why 将 sometimes appears with a 夕 at the top right, but other times - as the attached shows - uses three distinct dots?

[skylee]

Why? Is this the right question to ask? Or perhaps should the question be whether there are other ways to write the word?

Variants are common in Chinese. Other more learned members may be able to tell you why. I can't. But you can use the Variants Dictionary of the Ministry of Education of Taiwan to check out the variants of a word. Take a look -> http://140.111.1.40/yitia/fra/fra01063.htm

Learning calligraphy is also helpful.

[liuzhou]

Is it any different from a lower case A sometimes being written as 'a' and sometimes as 'ɑ' in English?

Different strokes for different folks.

[Takeshi]

I was under the belief that the variant with a 夕 was the mainland Chinese standard while the variant with a 爫 was the Japanese standard; I had no idea it was also acceptable in Chinese print at all, but what do I know.

[xianhua]

Just to clarify, calligraphy aside, I was talking in terms of typing characters using a standard input method (I use Sougou).

Interestingly, when I enter 将 into MDBG it converts it the dotted version, whereas nciku keeps it as it appears on my Sougou input selection bar (将).

I wonder how many other examples there are?

[renzhe]

That's because they are variants and thus exactly the same thing in terms of meaning and usage.

Often, computer fonts will only implement one of them, so when you show the same text in different fonts, the character will seem to "change".

[Kobo-Daishi]

That's a consequence of font.

Here I've copy and pasted your character into Wordpad and changed the font.

Here's how it looks using Arial Unicode MS.

And here's how it looks under AR PL UKai HK, a font I think I got from a Taiwan Linux site.

Same Unicode codepoint (#5c06), but, different form depending on font.

http://www.unicode.o...06&useutf8=true

It bugs the hell out of me since they're obviously of different stroke count then, but, still...

I'm sure you've got the fonts installed otherwise your browser wouldn't be able to display the two versions, but, I don't know how to change the fonts on Firefox so don't know which ones they use.

I had downloaded two books on CJK(Chinese, Japanese, & Korean) processing on computers that might explain it, but, can't seem to find them.

One was by Ken Lunde, an expert on the matter. The downloaded copy was on CJK. His latest is now CJKV. He's added Vietnamese to the mix.

Xianhua wrote:

I wonder how many other examples there are?

There was a previous thread with an example of another, but, I can't seem to find it.

Kobo.

[hackinger]

Hi,

the old thread is here:

http://www.chinese-f...92-小马词典-oddity/

If you want to check it out, go to

http://www.xiaoma.in...php?hz=将&fhz=将#

and change fonts with the change font function in the upper left.

My understanding is that in Unicode each character has a given codepoint. Trads and simplified characters have different codepoints, therefore one can display both with the same Unicode font. However Japanese and Korean characters share the same codepoint with the corresponding Chinese character version, see post above. Thus a given Unicode font can only display one version. In practice in the majority of cases the reason for seeing such a big difference is because a Japanese and a Chinese Unicode font are compared, rather than different Chinese fonts drawing different variants. (See also post #4 above and cababunga's posts in the old thread.) All AFAIK of course.

Cheers

hackinger

[Kobo-Daishi]

Hackinger wrote:

the old thread is here:

http://www.chinese-f...92-小马词典-oddity/

I don't think that was the thread. It was a more recent thread. From just last year. I remember seeing it a few months back.

Hackinger wrote:

However Japanese and Korean characters share the same codepoint with the corresponding Chinese character version, see post above. Thus a given Unicode font can only display one version. In practice in the majority of cases the reason for seeing such a big difference is because a Japanese and a Chinese Unicode font are compared, rather than different Chinese fonts drawing different variants. (See also post #4 above and cababunga's posts in the old thread.) All AFAIK of course.

Takeshi in post #4 wrote:

I was under the belief that the variant with a 夕 was the mainland Chinese standard while the variant with a 爫 was the Japanese standard; I had no idea it was also acceptable in Chinese print at all, but what do I know.

And Cababunga in the other thread wrote:

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...nary.org/wiki/直 .

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.

[Takeshi]

Oh I'm sure they have been a part of Chinese for who knows how long; I'm just saying the modern Mainland Chinese standard I think uses 夕 and the modern Japanese standard I'm pretty sure uses 爫. Character standards are a relatively new thing.

[DespikableMi]

They are just variations of the same character. In GB standard, 将 is a vulgar character adopted as a simplification for 將. On the other hand, the variation 丬寽 is adopted by Japan in shinjitai.

[Kobo-Daishi]

Skylee wrote:

Variants are common in Chinese. Other more learned members may be able to tell you why. I can't. But you can use the Variants Dictionary of the Ministry of Education of Taiwan to check out the variants of a word. Take a look -> http://140.111.1.40/...ra/fra01063.htm

I was going to recommend using the new trial version of the Dictionary of Character Variants because of font errors with the current edition.

But, then when writing a blog post on the trial edition I realized a new set of errors might be introduced because they are using fonts for the variants instead of graphics which could lead to problems similar to those encountered with this thread in that some readers don't have the fonts installed to view the character as it should appear.

http://dict2.variants.moe.edu.tw/variants/trial_ver_info.html

Kobo.

[Kobo-Daishi]

Takeshi wrote:

Oh I'm sure they have been a part of Chinese for who knows how long; I'm just saying the modern Mainland Chinese standard I think uses 夕 and the modern Japanese standard I'm pretty sure uses 爫. Character standards are a relatively new thing.

At least since when the Dunhuang stuff were written.

From the trial edition of the new Dictionary of Chinese Character Variants put out by the Ministry of Education of The Republic of China (Taiwan).

Kobo.