About 同形の別字 and its meaning


I am doing a research on differences between kanji and hanzi and accidentally
stumbled across the term 同形の別字. The article that refers to it doesn't
elaborate on its meaning. Does that term mean similar character shape but
different meanings in Chinese and Japanese? I'm still not so good at Japanese
so I am sorry if this question is lame.




> Does that term mean similar character shape but different meanings in
> Chinese and Japanese?

Essentially, yes, but...

「同形別字」 or 「同形異字」 literally means "same shape, different character". Something
similar happens all the time with 部首 (radicals): for example the radical forms
of 肉 and 月 should be said to be "same shape, different radical".

The same can happen with full characters, for example when a character is
simplified into an existing one, examples being

  * 藝 > 芸​【ゲイ】 vs. 芸​【ウン】
  * 燈 > 灯​【トウ・トン】 vs. 灯​【チョウ・テイ・チン】
  * 濱 > 浜​【ヒン】 vs. 浜​【ホウ・ヒョウ】

Note that Chinese simplifies 藝 > 艺 and 芸 is a separate character. (Similarly,
for 濱 > 滨 vs. 浜.) However, @droooze points out that Chinese also has other
examples of 同形異字, such as 后 & 後 > 后 or 發 & 髮 > 发.

