Category Archives: Variants

Variants in literature: 犟嘴 for 強嘴 jiang4zui3 To talk back/to give lip

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犟 jiang4 (/qiang3)

I found this variant of 強 in a traditional character version of a mainland Chinese novel (《馬橋詞典》 Dictionary of Maqiao by 韓少功 Han Shaogong). This character is not listed in the Taiwanese Ministry of Education dictionary although it is listed in the variant dictionary. I was surprised to see the character in a traditional character book, because it incorporates the simplified version (or variant) of 強: 强 above 牛 (ox). Lots of simplified characters were adapted from variants or commonly used shorthand however, so it’s not overly unusual. At first I thought it might be an amusing glitch thrown up in the process of transcribing the simplified characters into traditional characters, but after checking the original on Google Books, it seems to have been a choice by the author:

simplified

In the Taiwan variants dictionary it is weirdly listed as a variant of standard character  c07107 although this character cannot be typed – as it automatically switches back to 犟 when typing in zhuyin 注音 and Cangjie 倉頡.

Neither are listed as variants of 強 either. So I can only assume that Taiwan chose to replace this character with 強 in daily usage, although it still exists in its simplified form.

Various Variants – Antiquated or Alternate versions of Chinese Characters

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I started a collection of variants some time ago on Google Docs, but I gradually forgot about it – would be happy to hear from anyone about variants they have discovered in their language learning process.

Strokes (Original) Standard Form Character Variant pinyin 倉頡碼 Unicode Note
3 以 㠯 yi3 unknown u382f Classical only
5 冉 冄 ran3 月一一 u5184
8 姐 姊 jie3 女中x竹 u59ca
10 挽 輓 wan3 十十弓日山 u8f13
10 笑 咲 xiao4 口廿大 u54b2
10 鬥 鬭、鬬、閗 dou4 中弓口一中、中弓月一中、中弓卜十 U9B2D, u9b2c, u9597 found in 齊物論
12 普 暜 pu3 卜廿日 u669c
13 群 羣 qun2 尸口廿手 u7fa3
14 褒 闁 bao1 日弓日弓 u95c1
15 鋪 舖 pu4 人口戈十月 u8216 4th tone 鋪 only – both written 鋪 in classical, later 舍 replaced 金 as it reflected the noun’s meaning more accurately
15 璇 璿 xuan2 一土卜月山 u74bf
17 斂 歛 lian3 人人弓人 u6b5b

Comment below!

An alms bowl by any other name 盋／砵／缽／鉢 bō

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3542008756_b127c70724_oEver seen buddhist monks on the street collecting money with an alms bowl? Did you notice what it was made of? It’s interesting when you come across variants in Chinese based on the difference between the materials used to make it.

The Taiwanese Ministry of Education dictionary lists 缽 Bō as an alms bowl. I also found 缽 in 《馬橋詞典》：

他滋味無窮地搭嘴搭舌，突然想起什麼，轉身去他的窩邊取來一個瓦缽，向我展示裡面一條條黑色的東西。

I came across the character 盋 online and when I presented it to two Taiwanese colleagues, neither of them were able to identify it, however when I said it was pronounced Bō, one wrote 鉢 and the other wrote 缽.

盋 is a rare variant of Bō, made up of 犮 quǎn – itself a variant of 犬 （hound/dog) – and 皿 mǐn (dish/shallow container). 

The other three characters all combine 本 běn, which seems to be a phonetic component, with three different materials 缶 fǒu (pottery), 石 shí (stone) and 金 jīn (metal): 缽 砵 鉢

If you know of any other variants that follow this pattern, hit the comments section and I’ll feature them in a future post.

Photo credit: 心道法師

Side by side or top and bottom? Varying it up with variants

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m500_22024607701OK – just a quick post today! Am reading 《馬橋詞典》(Dictionary of Maqiao) by 韓少功 (Han Shaogong) at the minute and came across a word for a woman’s period or menstruation – 例假 – that I hadn’t seen before. For some reason I read this as 例期 however and looking it up I found the variant 朞 – a bottom top variant of 期 – combining 其 and 月. This reminded me of a few other variants that follow this pattern, like 峰 and 峯 feng1 “summit,” and 群 and 羣 for “qun1” crowd.

There’s also 鑒 and 鑑 jian4 which have their ingredients stirred around a little.

Let me know if you know of any others!