# Different Letter Shapes for Chinese Script: 骨



## cheshire

Please check your PC display to see which side 口 is placed in 骨.　On my PC it's on the lower right side. I guess it's the same for PCs sold in 繁体字 regions such as 台湾 and 香港, but it must be on the lower left side for PCs sold in 簡体字 areas. In other words, even if you use the same unicode symbol, it looks different depending on your PCs.

I googled this phrase "*关节炎*" and on the third result was this with all the page written in 簡体字, but on the abstract of the google result page all the letters were written in 簡体字　*except* 骨, with 口 on lower right side of the top half.

My question is, is it only 骨 that has such a problem? If you know other such characters, please let me know.


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## coconutpalm

I'm sorry, Cheshire, but there's no 口 in 骨. I think what you take as 口 is probably the third stroke which is just a bending折 which stick together with the first and the fourth stroke, a vertical stroke and a horizontal stroke.
Am I right in guessing?
Yes, indeed, 骨is written as the same in 简体and 繁体。


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## cheshire

Yes, the third stroke is what I meant by 口.


> 骨is written as the same in 简体and 繁体。


I don't think so. http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Lang

testing...簡体字：骨
　　　　　繁体字:骨
On display both words should be the same, as they're responsive to each PC's settings.

...but they are different between 繁体字 and 簡体字. Chinese board made it simple, reducing the number of stroke smaller by one stroke.


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## Flaminius

The difference is due to different character encodings.

If a Web page is encoded using GB2312, the character for bone looks as below.



But in Japanese encoding, it is this.


I don't know how two scripts from different character sets can be mapped as the same in Unicode.


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## coconutpalm

Flaminius said:


> The difference is due to different character encodings.
> 
> If a Web page is encoded using GB2312, the character for bone looks as below.
> View attachment 4456
> 
> But in Japanese encoding, it is this.
> View attachment 4457
> 
> I don't know how two scripts from different character sets can be mapped as the same in Unicode.


 
Oh, that's ridiculous I didn't know that. And I confess I've never noticed it when I'm reading books in 繁体. I'll go and find a book in 繁体 tomorrow in the library. Hope I can find the character easily!


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## cheshire

I hope to know as many words as possible of such characters (different between 繁体字 and 簡体字), for curiosity's sake!


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## coconutpalm

Ah, but characters of 繁体 and 简体are nearly all different. I know what you mean, but I hope a Taiwanese or a Hongkongese or a Mauca man/woman may come to help. I can read 繁体字, but I can't write them. I doubt whether THEY know how to write 简体字either...


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## Whodunit

If you're interested, it's always on the left side on my PC. It's all the same, whether I use the Japanese (Shift-JIS) or Traditional Chinese (Big5) encoding. I even tried to write "hone" with a Japanese keyboard, and it converted ほね into 骨, where the square is on the left side. In the JimBreens dictionary, however, it looks correct (with the square on the right) to me.


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## cheshire

To Whodunit: That's a big problem for learners of either Japanese, Chinese or (to a much lesser degree) Korean languages. 

The problem is, Whodunit and the ones using the same type of computers have to remember wongly that for example 骨　is the same both in Japanese and Chinese. It is not! As Flaminius explained, unicode number GB2312 has three representations that are decided according to PC's language setting (ja, en, zh). 

If you bought your PC in the US, then your PC's language setting is "en." I guess your PC automatically renders Chinese characters (of either 中文 or 日本語) all zh. As a result your PC can mostly display kanji, but can't display correctly a small number of words. 

We'd better let the admin of JimBreens dictionary to fix the problem.


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