Jiu zixing

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Chinese characters
Chinese family of scripts Written Chinese Kanji Hanja Chữ Hán
Evolution of script styles Neolithic symbols in China Oracle bone Bronze Seal Large Small Bird-worm Clerical Cursive Semi-cursive Regular Flat brush Typefaces Fangsong Ming sans-serif
Properties and classification Components Strokes order Radicals
Collation and standards Kangxi Dictionary forms (1716) General Standard Characters (PRC, 2013) Commonly-Used Characters (Hong Kong, 2007) Nan Min Recommended Characters (Taiwan, 2009) Standard Form of National Characters (Taiwan, 1982) Jōyō kanji (Japan, 2010)
Reforms Simplified characters second round Traditional characters debate Japanese script reform kyūjitai
Homographs and readings Literary and colloquial readings Kanbun Idu
Variants Zetian characters
Derived systems Kana man'yōgana hiragana katakana Jurchen script Khitan large small Nüshu Bopomofo Slavonic transcription
Transliteration of Chinese
v t e

Jiu zixing (simplified Chinese: 旧字形; traditional Chinese: 舊字形; pinyin: jiù zìxíng; Wade–Giles: chiu⁴ tzŭ⁴hsing²; Jyutping: gau6 zi6jing4; lit. 'Old character form')^[1], also known as inherited glyph form, or traditional glyph form, not to be confused with Traditional Chinese, is a traditional orthography of Chinese characters which uses the orthodox character forms, especially the character forms used in print after the development of movable type printing, but before reformation by national standardization ^[2]. Jiu zixing formed in the Ming Dynasty, and is also known as Kyūjitai in Japan.

Broadly, jiu zixing refers to all character forms used in printed Chinese before reformation by national standardization, such asxin zixing in mainland China, the Standard Form of National Characters in Taiwan, and List of Graphemes of Commonly-Used Chinese Characters in Hong Kong. Jiu zixing is generally the opposite form of the standards. Some representative books that used jiu zixing include Kangxi Dictionary, Zhongwen Da Cidian, Dai Kan-Wa Jiten, Chinese-Korean Dictionary, and Zhonghua Da Zidian.

Scholars have developed several standards for jiu zixing, but there is no single enforced standard. Variations of jiu zixing can be seen in the Kangxi Dictionary, Old Chinese printing forms, Korean Hanja, some printed documents in Taiwan, and MingLiU in Windows 98 and earlier versions; slight differences may occur between different jiu zixing standards ^[3]. Some open-sourced communities also develop and maintain jiu zixing standards which are either based on or unify other jiu zixing forms from academic research.

During the woodblock printing era, words were usually carved in handwritten form (regular script) as each woodblock is different, making the work to produce each printed book tedious. The development of wooden movable type during the Song dynasty caused the Chinese characters to take on a more rectangular form following the wood texture. Vertical strokes were thickened to reduce engraving loss, while a small triangle was added at the end of horizontal strokes and the start of vertical strokes to improve the legibility of text even after the pieces are worn out by long-term use. As the character styles started to differ widely from regular script, the calligraphic methods used on regular scripts could not be used on movable type characters and a new distinctive style designated for movable type was born. This style was developed fully during the Ming dynasty, which has now evolved into Ming typefaces.^[4]

Comparing movable type and woodblock styles, it can be noticed that movable type characters – which are the basis of jiu zixing today – are different from the random and changing nature of handwritten regular script, and emphasize clear strokes and the beautiful, symmetric structure of characters. Movable type characters also emphasize the philology aspects of Chinese characters more so than regular script.^{[citation needed]}

The Kangxi Dictionary is viewed as a standardization of jiu zixing and its character forms are referenced by multiple standards. In Taiwan it can generally mean jiu zixing. This name may also refer to the computer font TypeLand 康熙字典體. The Kangxi Dictionary has a few taboo words, such as 弘 and 玄, which should be corrected in current use.

Character forms depicted in KS X 1001 and KS X 1002 can usually be used as jiu zixing, but some fonts may not adhere to the Kangxi Dictionary. For example, the first stroke of 音 is a wilted dot (or vertical dot, 竖点, ), some components of 儿 are made to^{[clarification needed]} 几, etc.

Kyūjitai is the character form used before Japan released the JIS X 0218 standard (later expanded to JIS X 2013). In 2004, the revised version JIS X 0213:2004 changed some character forms back to Kyūjitai.^[5] Some characters have two or more forms listed.

The Inherited Glyphs Standardisation Documents is a modern open-source orthography standard compiled by the open-source organization Ichitenfont, mainly defined under the 'Checklist of Inherited Glyphs document. The checklist is conducted under philological research, with care given of orthographical theory, current usage, and aesthetics in traditional orthographies^[6]. Mixed components in current standards are separated and normalized to different character forms, and the most representative inherited character form is chosen as the recommended form. The standard also includes other orthographical forms with daily usage which have a legitimate philological source, providing various options to adjust and adapt character orthography on a per-font basis.^[7] The standard and its annex are available on GitHub under CC-BY 4.0, along with a supplementary font "I.Ming" which is used as the representative glyphs of the orthography standard, licensed under IPA Font License ^[8][9]. There are other open-source^[10][11][12] and commercial^[13][14] fonts providing support for Inherited Glyphs Standardisation Documents standard.

Most modern font foundries provides various variants of current-generation style Chinese fonts including justfont^[15] and Arphic^[16]. Current-generation style is a style that generally follows jiu zixing forms and styles, but some strokes or characters are changed to follow current education form, becoming partly xin zixing and not fully following the character forms of jiu zixing or the Kangxi Dictionary^[2]. IBM Plex Sans TC, an open-source Traditional Chinese font released on August 2024 ^[17] uses an "amalgam" style which is similar to current-generation style^[18].

Two notable examples of modern jiu zixing digital fonts with widespread use are the default Traditional Chinese system fonts offered on earlier versions of Windows and Mac OS, which are MingLiU/PMingLiU^[19][20][21] and Heiti TC^[22] respectively. However, the system fonts have been maliciously reported as "incorrect" by opponents^[23] and forcing vendors to change them to xin zixing in later versions.

• Xin zixing
• Ming/Song typeface
• Traditional Chinese characters

• Checklist of Inherited Glyphs
• Habitat – Hanzi Old Styles
• I.Ming font

Hong Kong Character Set Project