Global InformationJiu zixing information
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Jiu zixing (simplified Chinese: 旧字形; traditional Chinese: 舊字形; pinyin: jiù zìxíng; Wade–Giles: chiu4 tzŭ4hsing2; Jyutping: gau6 zi6jing4; lit. 'Old character form'), also known as inherited glyph form, or traditional glyph form, not to be confused with Traditional Chinese, is a traditional orthography of Chinese characters which uses the orthodox character forms, especially the character forms used in print after the development of movable type printing, but before reformation by national standardization. Jiu zixing formed in the Ming Dynasty, and is also known as Kyūjitai in Japan.
Broadly, jiu zixing refers to all character forms used in printing Chinese before reformation by national standardization, like xin zixing in mainland China, the Standard Form of National Characters in Taiwan, and List of Graphemes of Commonly-Used Chinese Characters in Hong Kong. Jiu zixing is generally the opposite form of the standards. Some representative books that used jiu zixing include Kangxi Dictionary, Zhongwen Da Cidian, Dai Kan-Wa Jiten, Chinese-Korean Dictionary, and Zhonghua Da Zidian.
Scholars have developed several standards for jiu zixing, but there is no single enforced standard. Variations of jiu zixing can be seen in the Kangxi Dictionary, Old Chinese printing forms, Korean Hanja, some printing forms in Taiwan, and MingLiU in Windows 98 and earlier versions; slight differences may occur between different jiu zixing standards. Some open-sourced communities also develop and maintain jiu zixing standards which are either based on or unify other jiu zixing forms from academic research.