Variants
The 214 radicals of the KangXi Dictionary provided a convenient indexing system for looking up meanings and usage of the characters from old texts. It is said that the vast majority of characters found the KangXi dictionary are variants.
The characters on this page are found encoded in Unicode 2.1. They are drawn from the Chinese hanzi, Japanese kanji and Korean hanja character set standards for computer information interchange.
There is a total of one hundred pairs of characters, which may or may not be commonly used in handwriting. Their inclusion in the character standards show variants have a fair degree of frequency of use to have been chosen. The list is not intended to be comprehensive, but they help to demonstrate the various forms that existed before language reform in writing and printed materials and prior to the reform of the written language in 1950's China.
Examples
冊册 凳櫈 台臺 刴剁 劍劒
劫刧 却卻 吊弔 同仝 唇脣
囘回 囻國 坤堃 圩墟 姉姊
壹弌 够夠 娘孃 學斈 寔實
峯峰 并幷 強强 担擔 晒曬
朞期 杯盃 槍鎗 沈沉 沙砂
溪谿 澀澁 灶竈 炮砲 烟煙
燈灯 牀床 狸貍 留畱 疎疏
皓暠 眞真 研硏 礦鑛 窗窻
笋筍 籖籤 綫線 総總 罵駡
羣群 脚腳 臥卧 舉擧 菓果
萬万 藥葯 蝦鰕 衮袞 覊羈
証證 艷豔 豬猪 赶趕 軟輭
迫廹 鄰隣 錘鎚 閑閒 陽氜
隷隸 雁鴈 靑青 面靣 韭韮
韵韻 飃飄 騒騷 骵體 鬦鬪
鬧閙 鰐鱷 鴉鵶 鵝鵞 鶯鸎
鹻鹼 麐麟 麤粗 麪麵 麼麽
黴霉 齩咬 齶腭 龡吹 龢和
The post war era also brought change in Japan. It produced simplifications independently from China, and whilst some new standardised simplifications coincide, others are very different indeed. We remain with China and its its simplified hanzi for now, and discuss the strategies used for the simplification of characters.
This page was created on Saturday 17th February 2001
and last updated on Thursday 22nd February 2001.