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Of course I'm talking about casual writing as opposed to formal or polite writing.

There are many 新字体 that were kind of "half" simplified in to the equivalent simplified Chinese forms such as 関 and 広 (just randomly picking) where the simplified Chinese equivalent would be 关 and 广.

Then there are kanji that aren't simplified at all such as 門, 個 and 機 where the Chinese simplified would be 门, 个 and 机.

Furthermore there are characters that only get simplified when they are radicals such as 金 in 銀 that gets simplified to 银 in Chinese.

My question is that are these simplified Chinese versions of the kanji sometimes used in place of the Japanese version? This is mainly concerning the characters that end up with less strokes in simplified Chinese compared to Japan's versions since they would (usually) be faster to write.

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  • 门 is often used instead of 門. 幾 is also often replaced by キ. The 言偏 is also often simplified to 讠, but of course not all Chinese simplifications are recognized by Japanese speakers...
    – Earthliŋ ♦
    Apr 20, 2013 at 13:43
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    Wikipedia has an article on 略字.
    – user1478
    Apr 20, 2013 at 13:43
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    While slightly different to simplification as found in Chinese, 皮膚 is often rendered as 皮フ, presumably because 膚 is a crowded character.
    – Quppa
    Apr 20, 2013 at 14:10

1 Answer 1

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Are these simplified Chinese versions of the kanji sometimes used in place of the Japanese version?

The answer is yes, if the Chinese simplification coincides with the simplification used in Japan. These simplifications have existed long before the writing reform in the 1960s and so it is only natural that there would be some overlap.

These 略字 are often employed in handwriting (as are カタカナ and ひらがな where appropriate) to avoid having to write full 漢字 characters. One example would be university lectures delivered on the blackboard, where a lot of characters have to be written in a limited time.

As far as I know, 略字 are not used in print.

Like I commented, 門 is in fact simplified to 門の略字 (used under GFDL from Wikimedia upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ja/0/09/RYAKUJI_2-0000.gif) and, e.g., 関 would be simplified to 門の略字 (used under GFDL from Wikimedia upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ja/0/09/RYAKUJI_2-0000.gif) with 关 inside (not on its own).

Likewise 機 is simplified to 木偏 plus キ, and 個 is simplified to 人偏 plus 口, so that all of the examples you claim to be not have simplifications, do in fact have simplifications (which just don't coincide with the simplification for Simplified Chinese). However, 言偏 can be simplified to 讠, as in Simplified Chinese.

I think Japanese 略字 don't include any lopsided characters like 广.

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    It must be pointed out that the simplified form of 門 in Chinese is not the same as the one in Japanese, but Unicode conflates them.
    – Zhen Lin
    Apr 21, 2013 at 7:49
  • Indeed. In Chinese, the dot comes first; in Japanese it comes last (i.e. 冂, then 丶).
    – Earthliŋ ♦
    Apr 21, 2013 at 8:01
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    How common is the 言->讠 shortcut? Is it acceptable to use in all handwritting, and will it always be understood by natives?
    – Daniel Safari
    Jan 25, 2014 at 15:15
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    Looking exactly like the Chinese simplification I've only seen it in university lectures, where the audience is clearly Japanese and there is a time limit. Normally 言偏 is written like it should, or like a cursive approximation. Check out this picture.
    – Earthliŋ ♦
    Jan 25, 2014 at 15:30

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