Why do dictionaries differ so much in terms of spelling and is there an established standard for how a word should be written in contemporary text?


If we look at thee はまる, きこり, しじま and うつつ as three examples of many, they are
spelt differently in different well known dictionaries.

はまる has 填まる first in Kenkyusha and Daijisen, while Meikyo and Shin Meikai have
嵌まる. The NINJAL-LWP from the corpus writes it with kana only.

きこり 樵 in Shin Meikai, Meiyo and Daijisen, but 樵夫 in Kenkyusha and 木こり in
NINJAL.

しじま is kana only in Daijisen, Meikyo, Shin Meikai and NINJAL, but 黙 in
Kenkyusha.

うつつ is kana only in NINJAL, 現 in Daijisen, Meikyo and Shin Meikai, but 現つ in
Kenkyusha.

So my question is: is there any established, even if unofficial, standard to
how these words should be written in a contemporary text? I'm asking both as a
general question, but also because it would help me decide what spelling I
should use in my flashcards. I see no point in learning what seem to be
obscure spellings like 黙, but I also don't want to rely on Jishos "Usually
written using kana alone", since I have already encountered loads of words
that are very commonly written in kanji, that have such information.

I realize dictionaries have good reasons for their specific spellings. What
I'm interested in is a good way to find out the preferable contemporary
spelling of a word.




The [jōyō kanji
list](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_j%C5%8Dy%C5%8D_kanji) is widely
available online, and it serves as a rough guideline for what kanji, or what
reading of a kanji, can be used. Newspaper publishers maintain another list of
kanji (including their readings) that can be used without furigana (see
[新聞常用漢字表](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%96%B0%E8%81%9E%E5%B8%B8%E7%94%A8%E6%BC%A2%E5%AD%97%E8%A1%A8)),
but it's 99% the same as the standard jōyō kanji list, so laypeople don't need
to worry about the difference.

Dictionaries usually indicate non-jōyō kanji and non-jōyō readings or a word,
like this:

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/AzoSp.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/AzoSp.png)

This dictionary (明鏡国語辞典) marks non-jōyō kanji with `▼` and nonstandard
readings of a jōyō-kanji with `▽`. These symbols typically mean it's not very
safe to use such kanji or readings. (jisho.org is an unfortunate exception; it
displays super-rare kanji without any warning.)

Novelists and poets often use rare kanji and rare readings, and native
Japanese people who like to read recognize many kanji that are not in the jōyō
kanji list. But that does not mean you also have to write them in kanji.
Personally, I can _read_ 木樵 and 現 (at least when there is enough context), but
always _write_ these words in all-hiragana.

A corpus can be used as a last resort, but NINJAL-LWP is a _parsed_ corpus,
meaning different spellings of the same word may have been "normalized". You
can use [BCCWJ](https://clrd.ninjal.ac.jp/bccwj/) instead if you want to do
"raw" text searches.




The [jōyō kanji
list](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_j%C5%8Dy%C5%8D_kanji) is widely
available online, and it serves as a rough guideline for what kanji, or what
reading of a kanji, can be used. Newspaper publishers maintain another list of
kanji (including their readings) that can be used without furigana (see
[新聞常用漢字表](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%96%B0%E8%81%9E%E5%B8%B8%E7%94%A8%E6%BC%A2%E5%AD%97%E8%A1%A8)),
but it's 99% the same as the standard jōyō kanji list, so laypeople don't need
to worry about the difference.

Dictionaries usually indicate non-jōyō kanji and non-jōyō readings or a word,
like this:

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/AzoSp.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/AzoSp.png)

This dictionary (明鏡国語辞典) marks non-jōyō kanji with `▼` and nonstandard
readings of a jōyō-kanji with `▽`. These symbols typically mean it's not very
safe to use such kanji or readings. (jisho.org is an unfortunate exception; it
displays super-rare kanji without any warning.)

Novelists and poets often use rare kanji and rare readings, and native
Japanese people who like to read recognize many kanji that are not in the jōyō
kanji list. But that does not mean you also have to write them in kanji.
Personally, I can _read_ 木樵 and 現 (at least when there is enough context), but
always _write_ these words in all-hiragana.

A corpus can be used as a last resort, but NINJAL-LWP is a _parsed_ corpus,
meaning different spellings of the same word may have been "normalized". You
can use [BCCWJ](https://clrd.ninjal.ac.jp/bccwj/) instead if you want to do
"raw" text searches.

