Extended shinjitai

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Extended shinjitai

What it is
Extended shinjitai are unofficial simplified forms of kanji that go beyond the standard set of simplified characters (shinjitai). They apply simplification to characters outside the official jōyō kanji list (hyōgaiji). In practice, this means some less-common characters are written in simpler ways, even though they aren’t part of the official list.

Origins
The idea began with newspaper editors and printers. The Asahi Shimbun created its own script, called Asahi characters, which simplified characters beyond the jōyō list. These ideas helped inspire a broader practice of simplification known as extended shinjitai.

How many and where they’re used
- In the Japanese Industrial Standards (JIS), extended shinjitai were adopted to include more characters.
- JIS X 0208 (1983) added many extended forms, with hundreds of characters simplified (about 299 forms in that version).
- JIS X 0213 (2000s) expanded the set further and introduced a group of commonly used extended shinjitai called kan’ikanyōjitai (about 22 widely used forms) for print.
- JIS X 0213-2004 refined some shapes and kept the extended forms in use.

Why some characters were treated differently
Extended shinjitai did not simply apply the same simplifications to all characters. Some characters sharing the same components were simplified differently, and certain hyōgaiji outside the jōyō list were not standardized. In short, not every character with a common building block was simplified in the same way.

Examples
- 學 became 学
- 國 became 国
- 體 became 体
- 讀 became 読
- 賣 became 売
- 儘/盡 merged to 尽
These examples show how extended shinjitai extend the basic idea of simplification beyond the official list.

Reduction and later changes
1990 brought JIS X 0212, which added an auxiliary set including both traditional and simplified variants for some characters. In 2000–2004, JIS X 0213 refined how these characters are used, and in 2010 the government relaxed the rules: handwriting simplifications are allowed, and alternate forms can be used in electronic text, though not all extended forms are universally supported by software.

See also
- Shinjitai
- Japanese script reform
- Hyōgaiji (kanji outside the jōyō list)