14974
This is my understanding but please correct me if some of my details are
wrong:

  * In 1946 the Japanese language underwent a reform and standardization process
  * A set of 1850 kanji were made official and others more or less obsoleted
  * A smaller subset of these kanji were simplified, the new forms becoming known as shinjitai and the previous forms as kyujitai

But some words which used characters made obsolete had their spellings changed
to use similar looking characters, my favourite being:

> "濠洲" (ごうしゅう, Gōshū), an ateji for "Australia" became "豪州"

  * Does this replacement of characters have a name? They are not shinjitai since they already existed and they are not in shinjitai tables.
  * Does this only happen with ateji or also with regular words?
  * Does it only happen when the replacement characters have a same reading as the replaced characters?
  * If not, does this add to the confusion of which readings apply to which characters?
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-06-04T00:57:36.237
531
2019-03-22T16:38:38.423
2014-03-21T01:51:09.733
4914
125
question
kanji spelling language-reform kyūjitai-and-shinjitai
On the replacing of kanji made obsolete in the 1946 reforms with similar-looking kanji.
I do not know any name for rewriting of kanji (because of a kanji reform)
using a similar-looking kanji.

I am not sure if 濠洲 was replaced by 豪州 because they look similar. I guess that
the biggest factor that contributed to this rewriting was they can be read in
the same way. Because 濠洲 is ateji, the most important property of the kanji 濠
must be its pronunciation. But these two facts (濠 and 豪 looking similar and 濠
and 豪 pronounced identically) are related because the kanji 濠 is
[形声文字]{けいせいもじ} (a kanji character consisting of a part representing its
meaning and a part representing its pronunciation).

Also note that in many other words, a kanji was rewritten with another kanji
with the same pronunciation and different meaning and shape (although meanings
are often related in some way). In 1956, 文部省国語審議会 (the Council on National
Language (?) of the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture) published an
official report describing guidelines for rewriting the kanji which are not
tōyō kanji (the kanji included in the 1946 list). The report was entitled
“[同音]{どうおん}の[漢字]{かんじ}による[書]{か}きかえ” (Rewriting by Kanji with the Same
Pronunciation), and it included many such examples (see an [article in the
Japanese
Wikipedia](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%90%8C%E9%9F%B3%E3%81%AE%E6%BC%A2%E5%AD%97%E3%81%AB%E3%82%88%E3%82%8B%E6%9B%B8%E3%81%8D%E3%81%8B%E3%81%88#.E4.B8.BB.E3.81.AA.E6.9B.B8.E3.81.8D.E6.8F.9B.E3.81.88.E3.81.AE.E4.BE.8B)).
This also suggests that the pronunciation was a bigger factor than the shape
when choosing how to rewrite kanji.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2011-06-04T03:24:39.817
535
2019-03-22T16:38:38.423
2019-03-22T16:38:38.423
9831
15
531
answer
As it turns out, I actually researched this phenomenon the other day while
doing some reading up on 旧字体【きゅうじたい】. As it turns out, what you're referring
to are 書換字【かきかえじ】. Essentially, with the promulgation of the 当用漢字【とうようかんじ】 in
1946, the Japanese government decided to try to encourage some additional,
more informal simplifications to bring vocabulary that depended on 表外字【ひょうがいじ】
into compliance with the new set without the need to resort to 交【ま】ぜ書【が】き
(aka. substituting katakana for missing characters, such as 天プラ instead of
天麩羅).

As for why the need to create a second tier of simplifications instead of
simply declaring these additional 新字体【しんじたい】 forms, I imagine a fair bit of
that stems from maintaining overall linguistic integrity. The 新字体【しんじたい】
characters were based off of long-standing traditions and 略字【りゃくじ】
(abbreviated forms of characters used in handwriting) forms of their
corresponding 旧字体【きゅうじたい】 characters. As such, there is a degree of continuity
in terms of meaning.

In the case of 書換字【かきかえじ】, the substitutions are based primarily on
substituting characters that are within the 当用【とうよう】・常用漢字【じょうようかんじ】 for ones
outside of it. Oftentimes this involved preserving a phonetic element and just
changing the accompanying semantic radical (e.g. changing from 骼 to 格). Other
times it was something a bit more dramatic (such as changing 誨 to 戒). In some
cases it involved simply removing parts altogether (e.g. 廻, 蛔, and 洄 all
became 回).

With that foundation laid, let's touch back on the questions at the end of the
original post:

> Does this replacement of characters have a name? They are not shinjitai
> since they already existed and they are not in shinjitai tables.

As mentioned above, these are called 書換字【かきかえじ】.

> Does this only happen with ateji or also with regular words?

The list I link at the end shows a great number of regular words. The primary
reason for this was to bring words using characters that were left out of the
当用漢字【とうようかんじ】 list into compliance. As a matter of fact, there are a couple of
rather common words that were affected by it (e.g. 注文【ちゅうもん】 was originally
註文【ちゅうもん】)

> Does it only happen when the replacement characters have a same reading as
> the replaced characters?

Yes, all characters have the same reading as the ones they replaced, at least
for the purposes of the word in which they are serving as a replacement.
Another feature that distinguishes 書換字【かきかえじ】 from 新字体【しんじたい】 that I've
observed is that from what I can tell the 書換字【かきかえじ】 were simplified as
_words_ , whereas 新字体【しんじたい】 were simplified as _characters_.

> If not, does this add to the confusion of which readings apply to which
> characters?

As mentioned above, they generally aren't adding any new readings to the
"simplified" characters. So no, it doesn't add to the complexity in that
regard.

If you want an overview of just what was changed and how far-ranging these
changes were, [this is the most comprehensive
list](https://web.archive.org/web/20130901135527/http://www15.atpages.jp/sa2700v/tojo-
daiyo-.htm) I've been able to find. For simplicity, the columns from left to
right are:

  * The modern reading of the character replaced
  * The classical reading of the character replaced
  * The characters involved (new on the left, old on the right)
  * The authority promulgating the change (either the government 国 or newspapers 新)
  * Affected words
  * Additional notes

This might have been a bit more information than you were looking for, but I
hope it helps!
CC BY-SA 4.0
2014-03-21T00:34:41.183
14974
2019-03-22T15:03:21.760
2019-03-22T15:03:21.760
9831
4914
531
answer