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The screenshot below is from Kotoba for iPhone.

tsumetai

It shows the character for "cool", 冷 as used in the word 冷たい. However, the character in the stroke order diagram is slightly different to the main one displayed top-left!

Why is this? Which one is correct? Or are both correct?

I suspect the stroke order diagram actually comes from a Chinese font, rather than a Japanese font. I'd like to confirm this.

Thanks to Lukman for the following screenshot:

different radicals

3 to 5 business days
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MatthewD
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    マ is not even a radical, though, strictly speaking. It looks to me like that program is using the word "radical" in a very broad sense, roughly meaning "oft-encountered visual element", to make it easier to find characters. WWWJDIC and its descendants do the same thing for their kanji search, sometimes referring to these as "parts" or "elements" to distinguish them from radicals. This is convenient because it means you can find 予 without knowing that its radical is actually 亅, but it muddies the waters when you actually want to discuss radicals as traditionally defined. – Matt Sep 20 '11 at 07:19
  • For what it's worth, the printed form is the form in the Kangxi dictionary: see the bottom right of [this page](http://www.kangxizidian.com/kangxi/0132.gif), and the bottom left of [this page](http://www.kangxizidian.com/kangxi/0093.gif). The Kangxi dictionary was the former gold standard in character shapes, before the promulgation of national standards in the modern era. – Zhen Lin Sep 20 '11 at 09:51
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    @Matt: Kotoba (the program above) and about 99% of all Japanese-learning software out there all use the same WWWJDIC dataset. So you can expect the same mistake/idiosyncrasies. Your point is interesting (I did not know that WWWJDIC's set of "radicals" differed from, say standard dictionary bushu), but I also think convenience is by far the priority for such a tool... – Dave Sep 20 '11 at 13:48
  • @MatthewD: the hand-drawn animation comes from a dedicated open-source project called [KanjiVG](http://kanjivg.tagaini.net/): built with a Japanese public in mind. – Dave Sep 20 '11 at 13:49
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    @Dave For sure! I won't deny that I make good use of the "element" search at www.jisho.org myself. Just pointing out that since マ isn't a "real" radical, it's not quite correct to say that the two forms "use different radicals." – Matt Sep 20 '11 at 14:02
  • @Matt: definitely. If anything, WWWJDIC's radical lists for a lot of kanji show multiple redundant breakdowns, using different "radicals" etc. – Dave Sep 20 '11 at 15:52
  • @Dave: Thanks for the info about KanjiVG. Check out their [Incorrect Kanji page](http://kanjivg.tagaini.net/Main/IncorrectKanji) though, which lists 令 under the heading _"The following kanji need to be checked and validated or fixed"_. – MatthewD Sep 21 '11 at 03:30
  • @MatthewD: this is a wiki and can be edited by anybody. The comment attached to the entry asks essentially the same thing as you did and is in no way authoritative. – Dave Sep 21 '11 at 05:11
  • @Matt: To be honest, I can hardly imagine any other definition of 'radical' in the context of kanji than "oft-encountered visual element", let alone one that would be more useful in any common context... please explain? – Karl Knechtel Sep 23 '11 at 20:08
  • @Karl Knechtel - The word is often used loosely in the way you describe, but strictly speaking, it's a translation of "部首", a more closely defined classifying component of individual kanji. http://japanese.about.com/library/weekly/aa070101a.htm – rdb Sep 24 '11 at 02:31
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    Related, posted over at Chinese StackExchange: [Characters which have several different shapes](https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/792/characters-which-have-several-different-shapes/31942), which specifically discusses Chinese vs. Japanese printed shapes, and includes a query on「令」. – dROOOze Nov 20 '18 at 06:52

6 Answers6

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It's no big deal, just that the most common standard handwritten form of the character is different from the most common printed form of the character. This doesn't even rise to the level of "variant character" in the strictest sense (like 悪 vs 惡). The two are the same character, just like a joined-up printed さ is the same as a disjoint handwritten one, or a cursive [a] is the same as a printed one in English.

The Chinese/Japanese thing is a red herring: here are two more sources clearly aimed at Japanese people showing this handwritten form. It is true that the printed Chinese form looks more like the diagram, but this is just because the "official" printed Chinese form was revised to be more in line with the pre-existing standard written form, shared by both Japanese and Chinese.

If you won't take my word for the above, check out the jōyō kanji guidelines [PDF] from the Ministry of Education. Scroll down to the section headed "明朝体と筆写の楷書との関係について" and you will see many similar cases of difference between standard printed and written forms, along with the Ministry formally declaring that these differences do not result in "different characters", or that the written form is "wrong". ("... 筆写の楷書における書き方の習慣を改めようとするものではない。 ... 印刷文字と手書き文字におけるそれぞれの習慣の相違に基づく表現の差と見るべきものである。")

Note that the character 令 is actually one of the examples in their "筆写の楷書では，いろいろな書き方があるもの" section, and the form with a final vertical is recognized as a possible "correct" handwritten version, so if it makes you feel more comfortable, go for it! Just don't be ragging on people who write it diagonally, because that's cool too.

Random832
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Matt
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  • Thanks for a well-reasoned answer. I managed to find the ja.wiktionary.org link myself, and I thought it actually supported my theory that it was a Chinese/Japanese thing. Yes, the page is aimed at Japanese, but the use of the form containing the マ radical is restricted to the section on the Chinese language. The Joyo kanji PDF is more convincing though. – MatthewD Sep 20 '11 at 07:07
  • So, what do you make of this discussion?: http://forum.jisho.org/discussion/902/fixed-all-the-known-kanji-stroke-order-bugs/p1 - _"The crossing is common in Japanese, touching in Chinese・Cantonese. The character is the same in Unicode, the rendering depends on the font (which should be selected to suit the text's lanugage)."_ (Discussing a different character, but similar concept.) – MatthewD Sep 20 '11 at 07:35
  • Hm, I guess Wikipedia isn't as unambiguous as I had hoped. My thinking: the stroke order diagram (that looks like マ) is up at the top in the 漢字 section, separate from the "Chinese" and "Japanese" sections. The "Chinese" part does show a printed version that looks like the stroke-order diagram, but if you view source you'll see that it's the same character with a different "lang" attribute. Also compare the pages for 馬/門, which show the simplified forms as 異体字 (with the note 簡体字). ... But I suppose all this could be written off as Han unification issues, so I'm glad the PDF was convincing. – Matt Sep 20 '11 at 07:36
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    Re the discussion: It is true that Chinese/Cantonese and Japanese can have different "standard" forms for the same character, and sometimes different/multiple "standard" forms within the same language for printed/written text. Whether this means that the characters in question are actually not the same can get philosophical. Han unification is a complex issue. But in the context of Japanese alone, I see no reason to deem written and printed forms "different characters" when native intuition is that they are the same and the closest thing to an authority (MEXT) agrees. – Matt Sep 20 '11 at 07:42
  • If you were to ask "are the (standard) Chinese and Japanese versions of 冷 really the same character?", that's where it might get tricky, at the very least requiring a very precise definition of "same" and "character". – Matt Sep 20 '11 at 07:45
  • I wasn't really asking if they're the same character though - I know they are. I think the difference in my iPhone app comes from there being limited SOD resources, so the app developer just used existing ones for Chinese, perhaps without even realising there could be differences. I vaguely remember reading something to this effect before. I also remember reading something to the effect of "you should use JP fonts for JP and CN fonts for CN because there can be slight differences" although this may have been referring more to Traditional vs Simplified. I can't find a reference though. – MatthewD Sep 20 '11 at 08:02
  • I also think this question has been asked before on Japanese.SE, which would make my question a duplicate! But, again, I can't find it. – MatthewD Sep 20 '11 at 08:03
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    Can't rule out anything from an app developer, but at least in the case of this character, the difference could just be because the form that looks like マ is indeed the most common handwritten form in Japanese. Put another way, I would expect the difference shown in your screenshot to show up even in apps hand-crafted from scratch by Japanese people for Japanese people. BTW, I would be willing to bet that "you should use JP fonts for JP and CN fonts for CN because there can be slight differences" was a reference to Han unification in general. It really is a vexatious issue! – Matt Sep 20 '11 at 08:13
  • Consider correcting the link to http://kokugo.bunka.go.jp/kokugo_nihongo/joho/kijun/naikaku/pdf/joyokanjihyo_20101130.pdf – Ahmed Fasih May 22 '16 at 02:06
  • @AhmedFasih I think [this link](http://www.bunka.go.jp/seisaku/bunkashingikai/kokugo/shoiinkai/iinkai_18/pdf/shiryo_5.pdf) might be more appropriate – archaephyrryx Apr 24 '17 at 14:19
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It's nothing to worry about, I would go as far to say that it's not even a different "radical". (How can it be? It's the same Kanji.) Just like in English, things get, shall we say, "corrupted" in hand writing. Nothing is ever as neat and pretty as the pixels on a finely crafted character.

Fortunately, this is an easier one to remember. Ignore my awful mouse handwriting.

Bend that baby, 60 degrees, roughly.

I've seen entire sections reduced to squiggles. Look at this for example:

enter image description here

In summation, keep it in mind and move on to the next Kanji. You're going to find a lot these types of "differences" along the way. Enjoy!

phirru
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「令」(command; order) contains two components:

  • 「亼」, an upside-down「口」(mouth), with handwritten shape sometimes as「亽」and sometimes the same as the Traditional print shape「亼」(cf.「食」・「今」・「合」・「倉」);
  • 「卩」, picture of a kneeling person. Only in the character「令」(and derivatives), this component is uniquely handwritten as「龴」and uniquely printed as「ㄗ」.

商
甲
enter image description here
甲597
合集32870春秋
金
enter image description here
秦公鐘
集成262秦
簡
enter image description here
秦律32
睡虎地竹簡

As mentioned elsewhere,

  • The shape「{{zh-CN:令}}」is the universal (Chinese, Japanese, and elsewhere) handwritten shape, and doubles as the Mainland Chinese printed shape, which merged the handwritten form into the printed form;
  • The shape「令」is the Traditional printed shape, which Japanese has kept unchaged.

Many differences in the printed shapes of some characters are due to the different regions importing different sets of handwriting features into the print shape. For example, the Republic of China (Taiwan) standardised the character as somewhat of a hybrid:「{{zh-TW:令}}」, with handwritten form「龴」and printed form「亼」.

Note that「龴」is not actually a meaningful component. It may be useful as a graphical element to describe characters specifically for an ideographic description sequence decomposition, but「龴」is not originally a character or common mark, and it is only coincidence that some modern shapes of characters happen to contain this. For instance:

  • In「予」,「龴」was originally the top component of「呂」.「予」(Baxter-Sagart: /*laʔ/) is composed of phonetic「呂」(Baxter-Sagart: /*[r]aʔ/) and a distinguishing mark「亅」, added to differentiate「予」from「呂」.

    戰國・燕
    金
    enter image description here
    襄安君鈚
    集成9606    西{{ko:漢}}
    篆・隸
    enter image description here
    老子甲・106
    馬王堆帛書    西{{ko:漢}}
    隸
    enter image description here
    老子乙・前9
    馬王堆帛書    西{{ko:漢}}
    隸
    enter image description here
    居延簡甲826
    　    現代
    楷
    enter image description here

    　

  • In「矛」(pike),「龴」was originally the shape of the blade.

    西周
    金
    enter image description here
    ⿹戈冬簋
    集成4322    戰國・秦
    大篆
    enter image description here
    廿五年上郡
    　    東{{ko:漢}}
    簡・隸
    enter image description here
    屯戍16.5
    流沙墜簡    現代
    楷
    enter image description here

    　

References:

dROOOze
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The screenshots below are from some font website.

s1 s2 s3 s4 s5 s6

They show the character "S", as used in the word "Script". However, the character in the pictures are entirely different to one another! I have seen even more variations!

Why is this? Which one is correct? Or are they all correct?

  • -1: I think you're wrong. Your variants of 'S' are still the basic curve shape, whether they contain embelishments or not. However, if you look closely, the two characters in my screenshot contain differing radicals - they are not differences that can be merely attributed to different font styles. – MatthewD Sep 20 '11 at 05:36
  • @MatthewD Whatever. –  Sep 20 '11 at 05:40
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    @sawa is correct. It's simply handwriting vs print. Different styles. 冷 vs http://storage.kamezo.cc/asp/katchnetwork/img_17/178038/k693197271.jpg (The last stroke is simply angled instead of perfectly vertical.) – phirru Sep 20 '11 at 05:43
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    @MathewD the 2 variations of 冷 is already very little compared to how different characters can be in different writing styles. – Flaw Sep 20 '11 at 05:48
  • The two radicals are clearly different: they're variants. It's not a simple quirk of font or handwriting. It can be confusing when you first encounter it, so I think it's a perfectly legitimate question. Did you all fall out of the wrong side of the bed this morning? – rdb Sep 20 '11 at 06:14
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    Different as they look, it *is* still a font issue more than a variant issue. Prickly as sawa's answer might be, he is basically right. But I think the question was still legitimate and could have been answered in a somewhat gentler way. – Dave Sep 20 '11 at 06:32
  • I agreed with both rdb and MatthewD that this question is perfectly valid. They are totally different radicals. +1 for the question – Lukman Sep 20 '11 at 06:36
  • Here is how my dictionary software analyzes the radicals: http://i.stack.imgur.com/eS739.png (the blue circles show the radical used in the computerized version while the red circle is the one used in handwritten version) – Lukman Sep 20 '11 at 06:41
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    Whether it's variant or font, sawa's answer wasn't prickly, it was *assholish*,and there's no reason to demean new users who have the awful temerity to wish to learn on this board. – rdb Sep 20 '11 at 06:44
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    @rdb I don't see the seething hatred, just a partial answer. There are indeed printing differences in English as well, just look at the printed letter "a" vs the commonly handwritten "a". In fact, depending on what font you use, the "a" character can be displayed differently. Switch to something like Avant Garde and you see the handwritten version of the "a". It's similar in Japanese too, there are certain fonts which mimic the handwritten version of kanji as opposed to the version often seen in newspapers. – Troyen Sep 20 '11 at 07:05
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    @Troyen - The problem is not in the substance, but in the style. – rdb Sep 20 '11 at 07:21
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    I think the trouble here is that those of us (myself included) who take kanji-recognition for granted see this as a trivial stylistic variation. sawa's answer merely shows that the same kind of stylistic variations in the forms of the Latin alphabet. I wouldn't normally upvote such an answer, but I don't think it deserves -4. So +1 from me. – Zhen Lin Sep 20 '11 at 09:37
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    @rdb I see no problem with the style of the comment here. Sometimes a little shock of this sort is required to get people to see things in a culturally neutral way. (Arguably, Roman characters are different in that the "official" forms are so plain in general - at least compared to many kanji - that elaborations can mostly be understood by just ignoring them and looking for the root shape, in this case the, well, s-curve of the S.) – Karl Knechtel Sep 23 '11 at 20:12
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    @Karl Knechtel - Sorry, but I see it as holding the OP up to ridicule. I don't think that's OK. It should have been handled differently, IMHO. A plain explanation would have avoided a lot of spilled electrons. – rdb Sep 23 '11 at 21:12
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    With all due respect, I think that interpretation is itself the result of a cultural difference. sawa's approach here (this seems like a typical example, actually) strikes me as somewhat Zen-inspired, answering a question with another question in order to highlight an implied misconception. – Karl Knechtel Sep 23 '11 at 21:21
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    @Karl Knechtel - This sort of cultural special-pleading is extremely unpersuasive to me. Look, if a Japanese person asked me why my handwritten "Q" looks like a "2", I would not shoot back with "Why does your "冷" have a "マ" in it? Did you ever think about that, huh?" Furthermore, if I did reply in that way, I don't think cross-cultural Satori would be a reasonable outcome to expect. Now, I have a great deal of respect for sawa: I think he's one of the finest posters here. But in this instance I think he was intemperate and rude. That is all. – rdb Sep 24 '11 at 22:03
  • rdb gives me fair comments to me, both positive and negative ones, and I respect those comments, as well as those given here by other users. It is just my way to do it like this. And I think at least some people, if not the OP, were able to understand my message. –  Sep 24 '11 at 22:19
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    "I have seen even more variations!" - sarcasm or mockery is uncalled for. – Andrew Grimm Apr 17 '12 at 09:12
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It’s just differences in font/handwriting. But as a side note, I've always written the version in the top-right of your screenshot, that's just how I was taught for Chinese.

See also nciku's Chinese dictionary entry for the character.

Flaw
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Don't panic. They're variant forms of the same character. You will encounter others. Chinese characters are very old, and have evolved in a variety of ways, including scriveners' errors, simplification, vulgarization, invention, etc., etc., etc. Fortunately, unless you're reading pre-war texts, most variations in use now are pretty easy to remember.

rdb
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