新旧字形对照表 (New versus old-style components)

[Gharial]

Are there any one-stop, chart-like online resources that cover this area? For example covering stuff such as the fact that the "grass" radical used to be printed a bit like two ten's (++) i.e. as four strokes, but nowadays is printed as three (艹).

There's a list of 48 such differences drawn from the Xiandai Hanyu Cidian and listed in Yin & Rohsenow's Modern Chinese Characters, and an even more comprehensive chart in my Xinhua (see attached partial scan), but I don't like infringing copyright and don't really have the time or inclination at the moment to compose such a chart myself! B)

[Jose]

The Chinese Wikipedia has an article: 新舊字形列表.

[Gharial]

Sorry Jose, but there doesn't seem to be much (from a quick look) that's a dedicated article or useful content on or leading from the page that you've supplied.

Not to worry though, as it occurred to me to enter 新旧字形对照表 as a search term on Google Books, which produced at least the following!

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=gJCwuxS4GNMC&pg=PA6&dq=%E6%96%B0%E6%97%A7%E5%AD%97%E5%BD%A2%E5%AF%B9%E7%85%A7%E8%A1%A8&hl=en&ei=v86vTJHjJsKL4QaU-NWOBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=book-preview-link&resnum=1&ved=0CCYQuwUwAA#v=onepage&q=%E6%96%B0%E6%97%A7%E5%AD%97%E5%BD%A2%E5%AF%B9%E7%85%A7%E8%A1%A8&f=false

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=DorqVZrKfLsC&lpg=PA1&dq=%E6%96%B0%E6%97%A7%E5%AD%97%E5%BD%A2%E5%AF%B9%E7%85%A7%E8%A1%A8&pg=PA74#v=onepage&q&f=false

(etc?)

[Gharial]

On the second page (not shown in the jpeg above) of my Xinhua's chart, it gives 普 and 虚 as examples of how the component in question is now written (i.e. now as 业). (I don't know where or how to find and thus display the older, more complex variant component - and I don't mean the actual character 業 by the way!).

However, whilst there is indeed a traditional variant of 虚 (虛), I don't recall ever seeing 普 written or printed with a more complex component than 业. So, is my dictionary wrong to say 普 was at one time somehow printed in the way that they suggest it was?

[Hofmann]

Such a simplification of matters, but at the same time an unnecessary complication. Everything that is 新字形 is the Mainland Chinese standard, exhibited in typefaces such as SimSun. 舊字形 mostly describes the forms in the 康熙字典. In any case, that which is shown as 舊字形 is just one nonstandard way of printing it that is not necessarily older.

[Jose]

So, is my dictionary wrong to say 普 was at one time somehow printed in the way that they suggest it was?

I've never seen 普 printed with a more complex shape than the usual 12 strokes. Even traditional fonts like MingLiu that use old-style shapes in cases like 兌 or 文 consistently use the ordinary 12-stroke 普, which is also the form used in Taiwanese dictionaries like 國語辭典, in the Unicode character charts, and in the Kangxi dictionary too. So, I think the only possibilities left are that either the Xinhua compilers had some obscure variant form in mind, or that they sloppily confused 普 with the separate 晉/晋 case.

[Gharial]

Thanks for the replies.

I think you may well be right about the sloppiness, Jose, but then, 'sloppy' is the very word that John DeFrancis used to describe the editor Wang Tongyi's work in general! (See here: http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/24510-pocket-two-way-e-cc-e-dictionaries-which-one-is-the-best/page__view__findpost__p__203886 ). So I'm actually using only a version of the Xinhua, and guessing that the proper/official Xinhua itself is better than this Wang Tongyi-edited effort!

[Gharial]

Hmm, I've just dusted off my Wieger, and Karlgren, and they both say roughly the following with regards to the formal development of the relevant characters (I’m not sure by the way that 晉/晋 is too relevant though, given the lack of the top 丷 and the fact that the original form was 晉):

bing4 1) 竝 > 2) 丱-like center > 3) 並 (Wieger: 'the modern deformation'; Karlgren: 'corruptions').

pu3: 1) like bing4's 2 with a 日 underneath > 2) 普.

So perhaps my Xinhua isn't that bad after all - at least, for anyone wading through anything as dusty (or dustier!) than Wieger or Karlgren.

[Kobo-Daishi]

Dear all,

Gharial wrote:

On the second page (not shown in the jpeg above) of my Xinhua's chart, it gives 普 and 虚 as examples of how the component in question is now written (i.e. now as 业). (I don't know where or how to find and thus display the older, more complex variant component - and I don't mean the actual character 業 by the way!).

Kobo-Daishi, PLLA.

[Gharial]

Thanks, Kobo! That'll sure make it easier for people to see exactly what I was on about.

Thread "bonus"/punchline: I was looking in my Yin & Rohsenow again, and saw that they do in fact have the variant of pu3, right at the bottom of their list of 48 old versus new forms! Don't know how I missed it - squinting at hanzi too much makes you start to go blind, perhaps?

[Hofmann]

You could have just looked at the 教育部異體字字典.

Edit:...and right after I post, I realize it's not on there. Now that I think about it, it just lists 楷書 variants.