What's the story behind 黒 and 黑? Why are they different?


In Chinese 'black' is 黑 and in Japanese it's 黒, but the kanji are not the
same. In traditional Chinese it's exactly the same as in simplified so both
are 黑 but Japanese is different. Was 黒 simplified?




Yes, 黒 is the 新字体{しんじたい} (simplified) form of 黑, which took the two dots at
the top and turned them into a straight line. The same simplification can be
seen in 曾 -> 曽. This was all part of the 1945 simplification scheme in
Japanese.

黑 is still used in chinese though, both simplified and traditional, and has
the exact same meaning of "black", as you pointed out.

Without going too much into it for fear of being off-topic, Japan underwent
its simplification of characters in 1945 -- earlier than Chinese. Because of
this, it has a few different forms. Simplified chinese has a lot of the same
simplifications, but equally there are a few divergences every now and again.
黒 is an example where Japan changed the character from 黑, and Chinese never
did.




Yes, 黒 is the 新字体{しんじたい} (simplified) form of 黑, which took the two dots at
the top and turned them into a straight line. The same simplification can be
seen in 曾 -> 曽. This was all part of the 1945 simplification scheme in
Japanese.

黑 is still used in chinese though, both simplified and traditional, and has
the exact same meaning of "black", as you pointed out.

Without going too much into it for fear of being off-topic, Japan underwent
its simplification of characters in 1945 -- earlier than Chinese. Because of
this, it has a few different forms. Simplified chinese has a lot of the same
simplifications, but equally there are a few divergences every now and again.
黒 is an example where Japan changed the character from 黑, and Chinese never
did.

