On Thu, 24 Mar 2005 13:13:37 +0800, Arne GÃtje (éçè) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Although DynaLab was the font foundry commissioned by the MOE to > > create the new standard character shapes to be used in Taiwan, Arphic > > also sells a font of standard character shapes the MOE would approve > > of. I bought my copy in Taiwan in Jan 2001. > > Yes, there are also commercial variants for the GB18030 standard > available... but they are not free. Actually, you can get SimSun-18030 as a free download from Microsoft. > > I don't want to get too technical here, but I can give you all sorts > > of information that shows that when all is said and done, any > > complaints the MOE has against the PRC is just the pot calling the > > kettle black (or as they say in Chinese, the soldier who runs fifty > > paces away from the battle mocks the one who runs one hundred). > > Ok, I didn't study this, my sources are only some guys in these > different regions to whom I've talked so far. > But maybe you can give me more information on this matter? Well, here's a simple example: é. The bottom has been written as å since ancient times; it comes from the character ä. It has nothing to do with either æ or è. But I guess people found it easier to write it as æ; I know I do. If the MOE *really* wanted to preserve tradition, it would have reverted back to å on the bottom, just as they refuse to use æ to represent the "flesh" radical. But no: they claim that æ is just a variant of ä (to quote: ääãæãïçãäãçèå). Here's another example: å and å. Those two strokes on top are identical in seal script; it looks pretty much like å. The MOE preserves this in å and all characters containing this component, citing the desire to follow the seal script, but not in å, with no explanation given (except to say that the top is not å). By the way, my reference for all of this is ãååæéåéãæåæåãã, published by the MOE. It goes into great detail about the reasons for their choices in standardizing character shapes. > > > a) "Rain" é: The 'raindrops' in this character should not face all > > > downwards, but as follows: upper left one faces from left-up to > > > right-down, lower left one faces from left-down to right-up, upper > > > right one faces from right-up to left-down, lower right one faces > > > from left-up to right-down. > > > Reason: the drops represent "Water", which is written that way. > > > > This is not borne out by the seal script. The rain character is not > > derived from the water character. The drops in the seal script are > > actually perfectly horizontal dashes. The Kangxi Dictionary has the > > raindrops all facing down. > > interesting... > I have a dictionary that documents paint brush writing (Kaiti style) in > different periods. Both ways can be found in there. Oh, I don't doubt the existence of calligraphic varation. I'm just saying that if you go back to the seal script, "rain" doesn't come from "water". It sounds like one of those folk etymologies so common in Chinese character "studies". > > > b) "Flesh" radical, looks similar like "Moon" æ, but the two > > > horizontal strokes in the middle are actually slanted, the upper > > > one from left-up to right-down, the lower one from left-down to > > > right-up. This is to distinguish "flesh" from "moon". > > > > This is by fiat of the MOE. This shape is attested to in earlier > > works, but it is not always this way. (I didn't look this up in my > > Kangxi Dictionary before coming to writing this, or I'd tell you what > > it says.) > > Again, in my source both ways are used. I checked Kangxi this morning: it uses "moon" for the "flesh" radical. Theron -- Linux-UTF8: i18n of Linux on all levels Archive: http://mail.nl.linux.org/linux-utf8/
