Shinjitai (Japanese: 新字体, "new character form") are the simplified forms of kanji used in Japan since the promulgation of the Tōyō Kanji List in 1946. Some of the new forms found in shinjitai are also found in Simplified Chinese characters, but shinjitai is generally not as extensive in the scope of its modification.

Shinjitai were created by reducing the number of strokes in kyūjitai ("old character form") or seiji (正字, "proper/correct characters"), which is unsimplified kanji (usually similar to Traditional Chinese characters). This simplification was achieved through a process (similar to that of simplified Chinese) of either replacing the onpu (音符, "sound mark") indicating the On reading with another onpu of the same On reading with fewer strokes, or replacing a complex component of a character with a simpler one.

There have been a few stages of simplifications made since the 1950s, but the only changes that became official were the changes in the Jōyō Kanji List in 1981 and 2010.^[1]

Background

The following forms were established as a result of the post-war character reforms. Many were based on widely used handwritten abbreviations (略字, ryakuji) from the prewar era.^[2]

In 332 cases, characters in the new standard have fewer strokes than old forms, in 14 cases they have the same number, and in 11 cases they have one more stroke. The most drastic simplification was 廳→庁, removing 20 strokes.^[3]

Methods of simplifying Kanji

Inconsistencies

Simplification was not carried out uniformly. Firstly, only a select group of characters (the common jōyō kanji) was simplified, with characters outside this group (the hyōgaiji) generally retaining their earlier form. For example, 賣, 續 and 讀 (with the right-side element in the latter two not being identical, but merely graphically similar) were simplified as 売, 続, and 読, respectively, but the hyōgaiji 贖, 犢 and 牘, which contain the same element (𧶠), were kept in use in their unsimplified variants.

Secondly, even when a simplification was done in some characters within this group, the analogous simplification was not applied to all characters. For instance, the character 龍, meaning "dragon", was simplified in isolation and in some compound characters, but not others. The character itself was simplified to 竜, as was the compound character 瀧 ("waterfall") → 滝; however, it was not simplified in the characters 襲 ("attack") and 籠 ("basket"), although an extended shinjitai variant, 篭, exists for the latter, and is used in practice rather often over the official variant, for instance in 篭手 vs. 籠手 ("gauntlet"). Note that despite simplification 龍 can still be found in Japanese.

Conversely, the character 貫 ("pierce") was not simplified, nor was the compound character 慣 ("accustomed"), but in the other compound character 實 it was simplified, resulting in 実 ("truth").

Similarly, 卒 ("graduate") has been kept unsimplified in isolation, but in compounds has been simplified to 卆, such as 醉 to 酔 "drunk"; 專 has been simplified to 云 in some characters, such as 傳 to 伝 ("transmit"), and 轉 to 転 ("revolve"), but it takes a different form in 團, where instead of changing the phonetic element in a regular manner to get the expected 囩 it is shortened to the meaningless component 寸, producing 団.

The latest 2010 jōyō kanji reform has added additional inconsistencies in this regard as in some instances radicals that were previously uniformly simplified across the jōyō set now first appeared in their traditional variants in some of the new jōyō characters; contrary to prior practice no new simplifications of characters have been carried out, likely in consideration of established JIS character set use spanning decades at this point. Compare 飮 → 飲 ("drink") to 2010 jōyō 餌 ("fodder, bait"), or 錢 → 銭 ("coin") to 2010 jōyō 箋 ("label"). For the latter an analogically simplified 䇳 character does exist, but was likely ignored due to having no history of use in Japanese character sets. On the other hand, former extended shinjitai 艶 ("luster") has been added in favor of 艷.

Nevertheless, the guidelines published by the Japanese government explicitly permit simplification in handwriting, and do not object to use of alternate characters in electronic text.^[5]

Simplifications in Jōyō Kanji and Jinmeiyō Kanji

In the 2,136 Jōyō Kanji, there are 364 pairs of simplified and traditional characters. The kanji 弁 is used to simplify three different traditional kanji (辨, 瓣, and 辯). Of these 364 traditional characters, 212 are still used as Jinmeiyō Kanji in names. The Jinmeiyō Kanji List also includes 631 kanji that are not elements of the Jōyō Kanji List; 18 of them have a variant. For a list of traditional and modern forms of Jōyō Kanji and Jinmeiyō Kanji, see Kyūjitai.

Some of the traditional kanji are not included in the Japanese font of Windows XP/2000, and only rectangles are shown. Downloading the Meiryo font from the Microsoft website (VistaFont_JPN.EXE) and installing it will solve this problem.

Controversies

Like one of the controversial aspects of simplified Chinese, some shinjitai were originally separate characters with different meanings. For example, the kanji 藝 (GEI; performance, accomplishment) was simplified to 芸, but 芸 was originally a separate character read with the On reading UN. Many of the original characters which have become merged are no longer used in modern Japanese: for example, 豫 (YO, arakaji(me); in advance) and 餘 (YO, ama(ri); excess) were merged with 予 and 余, respectively, both archaic kanji for the first person pronoun "I". However, 芸 poses a problem, in that Japan's first public library, Untei (芸亭) (built during the Nara Period) uses this character. This character also has significance in classical Japanese literature, and Japanese history books have had to distinguish between the two by writing UN using the old form of the 艹 radical, (艸).

Differences in simplification between Chinese and Japanese

Mainland China, Singapore, Malaysia and Japan simplified their writing systems independently from each other. After World War II, poor relations prevented cooperation between the two nations. Traditional Chinese characters are still officially used in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, South Korea (as a supplement to Hangul, but they are no longer used in North Korea), and by many overseas Chinese.

In Chinese, many more characters were simplified than in Japanese; some characters were simplified only in the one language, but not in the other; other characters were simplified in the same way in both languages, others in different ways. This means that those who want to learn the writing systems of both Chinese and Japanese must sometimes learn three different variations of one character: traditional Chinese, simplified Chinese, and modern Japanese (e.g.龍 - 龙 - 竜 for "dragon").

See also

•  Japan portal
•  Languages portal

References

External links

Look up shinjitai in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Kanji - Japanese Simplifications
• The 20th Century Japanese Writing System: Reform and Change by Christopher Seeley