Ming or Song is a category of typefaces used to display Chinese characters, which are used in the Chinese, Japanese and Korean languages. They are currently the most common style of type in print for Chinese and Japanese. Name The names Song (or Sung) and Ming correspond to the Song Dynasty when a distinctive printed style of regular script was developed, and the Ming Dynasty during which that style developed into the Ming typeface style. In Mainland China, the most common name is Song (the Mainland Chinese standardized Ming typeface in Microsoft Windows being named SimSun). In Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and Korea, Ming is prevalent. In Hong Kong and Taiwan, “Song typeface” () has been used but “Ming typeface” () has increased currency since the advent of desktop publishing. Some type foundries use "Song" to refer to this style of typeface that follows a standard such as the Standard Form of National Characters, and “Ming” to refer to typefaces that resemble forms found in the Kangxi dictionary. Chinese: ; Jyutping: Sung3tai2/Ming4tai2 Japanese: ; rōmaji: Minchōtai Korean: Hangul: ; Hanja: ; Revised Romanization: Myeongjoche Hangul: ; Hanja: ; Revised Romanization: Batangche Characteristics Characteristics of Ming typefaces include the following: The basic structure of regular script Thick vertical strokes contrasted with thin horizontal strokes Triangles at the end of single horizontal strokes, called (, literally "fish scales") in Japanese, comparable to serifs. These are a print analog of the slight dot caused by pausing one's brush ( ), the "pause technique", used to reinforce the beginning or ending of a stroke, which is characteristic of regular script. Overall geometrical regularity Possessing variable line weight and characteristic decorations at the end of lines similar to serifs, this type style is comparable to Western serif typefaces, as opposed to East Asian gothic typefaces which are comparable to Western sans-serif. Variations Often there are different ways to write the same Chinese character; these are collectively referred to as variant Chinese characters. Some of the differences are caused by character simplification, while others are purely orthographic differences such as stroke styling. The styling of the strokes used in old Ming typefaces came from the style used in the Kangxi Dictionary. In mainland China, the modern standardized character forms are specified in the List of Commonly Used Characters in Modern Chinese. Some characters in the list differ from the Kangxi forms solely because they are Simplified