The ‘kanji’ of “kanji culture” is written with two Chinese characters. The first character is read kan in Japanese; the second is read ji. The same two characters are read han and zi in Mandarin Chinese and han and ja in Korean. Until about fifty years ago, the same set of forms of the first character were used throughout China, Korea, and Japan. Although they were pronounced differently in the various Chinese dialects, in Korean, and in Japanese, the written forms of both characters were the same everywhere. Nowadays, only ji 字, the second character of kan ji, appears in the same form throughout the CJK world.
The first character was simplified by the Chinese government and by the Japanese government in different ways. What had been the same for more than fifteen hundred years became different. So far, the Chinese have simplified the form of about 500 hanzi of which about a third appear as a part of another hanzi which means that the total number of simplified hanzi is not exactly fixed since the total repertoire of Chinese characters is not fixed because some count local variants, ancient and obsolete forms, and exceedingly rare characters, and some don’t. But a seat-of-the-pants estimate might be that there are around 2,000 simplified hanzi in daily use.
The Japanese have simplified the form of a few hundred kanji. Like the character for kan in ‘kanji’, these new Chinese 汉 and Japanese 漢 simplified forms often differs from each other. [Note 1] This is one reason why the role of kanji as a unifying force across geographic areas has diminished.
The people in Taiwan did not do much to simplify the kanji. So the forms of the kanji used in Taiwan today are generally the same as the forms used since the kaishu style that arose in the early Han dynasty (206BC – 12AD) which was based on the first major simplification and standardization of kanji in the Qin dynasty, around 221BC. For one who has learned the traditional forms of the kanji, as taught in Taiwan, for example, it is immensely satisfying to be able to pick up a copy of a book written almost two thousand years ago and find that nearly all the kanji are recognizable. Those who have learned only the new simplified forms can’t do this, and easy access to past writing is cut off from the start. This is one reason why the role of kanji as a unifying force across generations has diminished.
Note 1: The difference between the current Japanese version of kan and the traditional Chinese version is minimal. And the traditional Chinese version is also the Korean version. Compare the left character in the sidebar image above, han/kan in traditional Chinese script with the character in the middle. There is an extension upward of the central vertical stroke and above that one tiny additional horizontal stroke in the traditional form. The radically simplified form now used in China is on the far right.
Although I tend to focus on the traditional forms of the kanji, modern editions of Chinese and Japanese dictionaries and other reference works as well as modern articles and books are required to use simplified kanji. In quoting and discussing these, I, too, must use simplified kanji. So you will find both traditional and simplified kanji forms in these pages. The simplified forms may be Chinese or Japanese or both, but well-marked in each case.
