3724
I don't know how to intentionally write the kanji that way, but on my ubuntu
system 強い sometimes gets rendered that way.

What I'd like to know first if it's incorrect or if it's some rare but still
valid way to write it. I went through all the kanji in my jisho that featured
弓 but none of them matched the weird tsuyoi.

Secondly I'd be interested in if anyone had any explanation for why it's
rendered like this?

My personal guess is that it has something to do with the fonts or something.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-11-13T11:25:52.063
3722
2011-11-13T18:06:20.143
258
question
kanji
Is the 強い with a ロ instead of ム on top a valid kanji in Japanese?
The kanji with ム
([強](http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/5F37/index.htm)) and the
kanji with 口
([强](http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/5F3A/index.htm)) are two
forms of the same kanji. In Japanese, the two forms were used interchangeably
before the [kanji reform in
1946](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C5%8Dy%C5%8D_kanji). After the 1946 kanji
reform, the form with ム is the standard form of the kanji and the form with 口
is used only in limited circumstances such as family names.

I think that the [simplified
Chinese](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Chinese_characters) uses the
form with 口 rather than the form with ム.

> What I'd like to know first [is] if it's incorrect or if it's some rare but
> still valid way to write it.

Whether it is “valid” or “incorrect” depends on your stance, but it is a
nonstandard form according to the current standard of kanji characters in
Japanese.

> Secondly I'd be interested in if anyone had any explanation for why it's
> rendered like this?

“How to set up a computer to use Japanese” is off topic on this website. I
suspect that you are using a Chinese font, and I am not sure.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-11-13T14:51:43.997
3724
2011-11-13T15:27:38.667
2011-11-13T15:27:38.667
15
15
3722
answer
As for the correctness, see Tsuyoshi Ito's answer. As for why it is rendered
like this, it is due to the famous political and/or cultural struggles between
different countries at the Unicode committee and other computer industries.

In general, non-East Asian countries (especially American and European) do not
care about the subtle differences between Chinese characters, and want to make
the font encoding as concise as possible, assigning a single code to multiple
variants of related characters or rendering those characters (even if they
have different codes) as the same. The attitude of trying not to bother with
East Asian languages is obvious in Microsoft products. In Windows (at least
until XP), the entire operating system (not just the locale setting) is
different for different languages, and when you want to use an East Asian
language on an English version, you not only have to set the locale, but have
to figure out the way to turn on the 2-byte encoding service, which is turned
off by default and is hidden somewhere making it difficult to access. Google's
Chrome web browser is also known for its terrible handling of font encoding
especially for East Asian languages. (Rare as an American company, Apple has
good understanding on this matter, and iOS does not have different versions
for different languages. You just change the language setting, and it works.)

On the other hand, the East Asian countries are concsious of the difference,
and in general are for encoding them differently. If any East Asian country is
toward unifying them, I can imagine a political reason. For example, if
Mainland China wants to exclude the traditional form and push the simplified
form to be adopted, then that can be a road map towards culturally unifying
Hong Kong, Makau, and Taiwan.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-11-13T18:00:34.840
3725
2011-11-13T18:06:20.143
2011-11-13T18:06:20.143
3722
answer