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Variant Chinese character

Variant character
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese 異體字
Simplified Chinese 异体字
Literal meaning different form character
Alternative Chinese name
Traditional Chinese 又體
Simplified Chinese 又体
Literal meaning also form
Second alternative Chinese name
Traditional Chinese 或體
Simplified Chinese 或体
Literal meaning or form
Third alternative Chinese name
Chinese 重文
Literal meaning repeated writing
Korean name
Hangul 이체자
Hanja 異體字
Japanese name
Hiragana いたいじ
Kyūjitai 異體字
Shinjitai 異体字

Variant Chinese characters (simplified Chinese: 异体字; traditional Chinese: 異體字; pinyin: yìtǐzì; Kanji: 異体字; Hepburn: itaiji; Hanja: 異體字; Hangul: 이체자; Revised Romanization: icheja) are Chinese characters that are homophones and synonyms. Almost all variants are allographs in most circumstances, such as casual handwriting. Some contexts require the usage of certain variants, such as in textbook editing.

Variant Chinese characters exist within and across all regions where Chinese characters are used, whether Chinese-speaking (mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Singapore), Japanese-speaking (Japan), or Korean-speaking (North Korea, South Korea). Some of the governments of these regions have made efforts to standardize the use of variants, by establishing certain variants as standard. The choice of which variants to use has resulted in some divergence in the forms of Chinese characters used in mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea and Taiwan. This effect compounds with the sometimes drastic divergence in the standard Chinese character sets of these regions resulting from the character simplifications pursued by mainland China and by Japan.


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