Comments on: Shorthand Kanji Forms

By: Pop pork

Pop pork — Wed, 03 Sep 2014 00:56:54 +0000

I waiting for a shorthand for 一 it’s such a long stroke takes forever to write

个is simplified 個 in Chinese and it’s faster

By: Thomas

Thomas — Mon, 21 Jul 2014 17:15:41 +0000

Correction of my previous statement: While 旺 isn’t a shorthand for 曜, a variation that can’t be typed where 王 is replaced by 玉 IS considered shorthand.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Tue, 15 Jul 2014 15:44:23 +0000

Actually, 旺 is a current 常用漢字 and it means ‘flourishing’ or ‘vigorous’. So I’m afraid that while your dream of it being a 常用漢字 is real, it isn’t shorthand.

Brilliant article, by the way. I love the whole site.

By: Jean-Michel

Jean-Michel — Mon, 08 Jul 2013 17:23:55 +0000

Fascinating article. I don’t know much about Japanese, but I have a more than passing interest in Chinese, and I’ve learned some interesting info about the 圕 character: it was invented by Du Dingyou (杜定友), one of the founders of Chinese library science, who created it in 1924 as a substitute for 圖書館 (as it was then written). This was pretty radical, since Chinese traditionally doesn’t use single characters to represent polysyllabic words. Two years later he went to Japan and was involved in founding a library science journal called–you guessed it–“圕.” The character is still informally used in China, though since the 1950s 圖書館 has been officially simplified to 图书馆; 圕 itself is commonly simplified by replacing the inner 書 with 书.

By: Damon

Damon — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 19:31:59 +0000

Are there some kanji for which there is no shorthand? For example, I’m looking for a shorthand form of Shidoin : 指導員.

Thanks for the informative read!

By: Shorthand « Exeter College Journalism Programme

Shorthand « Exeter College Journalism Programme — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 20:37:30 +0000

[…] is a really interesting article on Japanese shorthand from the website Nihonshock. Kanji’s are transformed using a combination […]

By: Noli

Noli — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 23:53:34 +0000

I’ve seen the 第 shorthand on road signs for parking lots at 桜山 in 群馬県, famous for 冬桜. (1st lot, 2nd lot, etc) This is a pretty rural area, so probably a little rougher around the edges.

By: mkrause

mkrause — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 23:13:26 +0000

Oh wow! Using katakana to substitute for phonetic parts of kanji is a great idea.

Think about it, in most phonetic-signific kanji, the phonetic part contributes nothing to the meaning, they’re purely a Chinese way to differentiate and hint the sound. But in Japanese that could be done much more efficiently using the existing phonetic syllabaries.

If Japan were to ever reform their writing system this might be a great way to do it.