殺 11 or 10 strokes?

[stapler]

I have noticed sometimes that 殺 has 11 strokes instead of 10. The 11th stroke being a 點 above the bottom left component in the same way as 犬.

 

As in here: https://www.moedict.tw/%E6%AE%BA

 

Is the lack of the 點 in many fonts just because it's too small to be displayed, or is this a case of variant characters?

[xiaokaka]

10 strokes are used in the mainland (for the traditional character) and Japanese standards, while the Taiwanese and Hong Kongese uses 11 strokes. So it's probably a font issue.

See: http://www.zdic.net/z/1c/zy/6BBA.htm

[stapler]

Thanks! And interesting, I didn't even know there was a mainland set of traditional characters that differs from the Taiwanese set.

[skylee]

There is a HK set of traditional characters too. For example, compare the characters 衛 (Taiwan) and 衞 (HK).

[Kamille]

I didn't know either that there was a traditional set of characters in the mainland. I knew for Japan and HK, though, because every area has its own specific preferences for different 異體字, but I'm just surprised by the possibility that mainlanders would still be using traditional characters, even written slightly differently.

Can you tell us more about it, xiaokaka? Is it only a regional thing that only old people use in certain areas or is it approved by the government?

[xiaokaka]

I don't know very much about it, but this Wikipedia page is very useful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variant_Chinese_character#Usage_in_computing

"From right to left: Kangxi Dictionary forms, Mainland China standard, Hong Kong standard, Taiwan standard, Japanese standard. Areas in the rightmost column where there are significant differences among different standards are highlighted in yellow. (玄 is not written completely in the Kangxi Dictionary because 玄 is a character in the Kangxi Emperor's given name, 玄燁. It was taboo to write a character in the emperor's given name.)"