Everything about Shinjitai totally explained
Shinjitai (in Shinjitai: ; in
Kyūjitai: ; meaning "new character form"), are the 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, but Shinjitai is generally not as extensive in the scope of its modification as Simplified Chinese. Thus, modern Japanese Kanji more closely resembles
Traditional Chinese characters.
Shinjitai were created by simplifying the complicated
Kyūjitai (/, "old character form"), unsimplified Kanji equivalent to the
Traditional Chinese characters, also called
seiji, meaning proper/correct characters) through a process (very similar to that of Simplified Chinese) of either replacing the
tsukuri (right-hand part of a Kanji) indicating the
On reading with another character of the same On reading with fewer strokes, or replacing a complicated section of a character with a more simplified symbol.
There have been a few stages of simplifications made since the
1950s, but there have been no changes made since the promulgation of the
Jōyō Kanji List in
1981.
Background
The following forms were established as a result of the postwar character reforms - however, they were not completely created anew, but (like Simplified Chinese) many were based on widely used handwritten abbreviations (
Ryakuji, ) from the prewar era. This page
(External Link
) shows examples of these handwritten abbreviations, identical to their modern Shinjitai forms, from the postwar era. Due to the complexity of Kanji, many abbreviations were used in handwriting, whose status rose to become official characters in the postwar reforms. Attention was paid to the aesthetic balance of the characters in their new form.
Kyūjitai: 鐵→Shinjitai: 鉄 (
TETSU; iron)
與→与 (On:
YO,
Kun:
ataeru; to bestow, to impart)
學→学 (
GAKU,
manabu; to learn)
體→体 (
TAI,
karada; body)
臺→台 (
TAI; [n.] stand; also used for
Taiwan)
國→国 (
KOKU,
kuni; country)
關→関 (
KAN,
seki; involve, concerning)
寫→写 (
SHA,
utsusu; to write or compose)
廣→広 (
KŌ,
hiroi; expansive, wide)
圓→円 (
EN;
marui; round, circular; also used for
yen)
There are other widely used Ryakuji of this sort, such as the abbreviations for 門 (in Simplified Chinese, this abbreviation, 门, has become official) and 第 (which exists in
Unicode as
(External Link)), but these have not been included in the Shinjitai reforms. Unlike Simplified Chinese, these simplifications were originally only applied to characters in the Tōyō and Jōyō Kanji Lists, with the Kyūjitai forms remaining the official forms of
Hyōgaiji (表外字, characters not included in the Tōyō and Jōyō Kanji Lists). For example, the character 擧 (
KYO,
agaru,
ageru; raise [anexample]) was simplified as 挙, but the character 欅 (
keyaki;
zelkova tree) which also contained 擧, remained unsimplified due to its status as a Hyōgaiji. However, the
JIS standards contain numerous simplified forms of Kanji following the model of the Shinjitai simplifications, such as 﨔 (the simplified form of 欅). The
Asahi Shimbun newspaper is thorough in its simplification of Hyōgaiji, for example 痙攣 (
KEIREN; cramp, spasm, convulsion) is simplified following the model of 經→経 and 戀→恋. This is also said to have been done due to the fact that in the age of
typewriter-based printing, more complicated Kanji couldn't be clearly printed. See
the article on Asahi characters for more information.
Methods of simplifying Kanji
Adoption of grass script forms
Cursive script forms of Kanji were adopted as Shinjitai. Examples include:
- 圖→図
- 觀→観
- 示 (religion/ceremony radical) →礻
- 晝→昼
The aforementioned 门 handwritten simplification also originated from a cursive script form, but isn't generally accepted in official Japanese writing.
Standardization and unification of character forms
Characters in which there were two or more variants were standardized under one form. The character 島 (
TŌ,
shima; island) also had the variant forms 嶋 (still seen in proper names) and 嶌, but the 島 form became standard. The 辶 radical was once printed with two dots (as in the Hyōgaiji 逞) but was written with one (as in 道), so the written form with one dot became standard. The character 青 (
SEI,
SHŌ,
aoi; blue) was once printed as 靑 but written as 青, so the written form became standard. The upper ソ portion of the characters 半, 尊, and 平 was once printed as 八 and written ソ (as in these three examples), but the old printed form is still seen in the Hyōgaiji characters 絆 and 鮃.
Change of character indicating On reading
Kanji of the
Keisei moji (形声文字) family contain a
radical (
bushu, 部首) and a character indicating its On reading (
onpu, 音符). 清, 晴, 静, 精, 蜻 are all read with the On reading
SEI, as indicated by the onpu 青. In this method of simplification, an onpu that's complicated is replaced by a simpler Kanji with the same reading, for example, the character 圍 (
I,
kakomu; enclose), in which the onpu is 韋 (read as
I), is replaced by 井 (also read as
i, although this is actually the Kun reading) to become 囲. Other simplifications of this method include 竊→窃, 廰→庁, 擔→担. There are also colloquial handwritten simplifications based on this model, in which various non-kanji symbols are used as onpu, for example 魔 (
MA; demon) [simplification:广+マ ].
Removal of complicated portions
Some kanji were simplified by removing entire components. For example,
The portion of was removed to become
→
→
→
→
One curious example is, meaning "dragon". It was simplified to, but the same character was not simplified when it appeared as a part of another kanji. A particularly curious example is 襲, meaning "attack", because it appears on the list of jōyō kanji (and is the only character containing 龍 to do so), although 龍 itself does not.
Like one of the controversial aspects of Simplified Chinese, some Shinjitai were originally separate characters with different meanings. For example, the Shinjitai 芸 (GEI; performance, accomplishment) which 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; 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, (十十). However, since the shinjitai simplification is more conservative, and generally based on already-in-use simplifications, these collisions are rare, and shinjitai simplification has generally met with less resistance than Simplified Chinese.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Shinjitai'.
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