儿旁의 几旁과의 편방 혼동 현상과 관련 한자의 자형 표준화에 대한 提言

Abstract

In Kaishu style, “人 rén” is transformed to “儿 rén” when it is located below another character. This varied form “儿 rén” is often written as “几 jī” when it is not attached to the part right above it. For this reason, the Chinese characters containing “儿 rén” that is not in contact with the upper part, such as “虎 hǔ”, “微 wēi”, “禿 tū”, “宂 rǒng”, “亮 liàng” and “兜 dōu”, often have a variant form in which “儿 rén” is transformed to “几 jī”.<BR> There are not a few inconsistencies of the forms of components in Chinese character fonts currently used in Korea; more seriously, even the same character has slightly different forms depending on the font. These inconsistencies have been an obstacle that hinders Chinese character education. The same problem is found in the characters that contain “儿 rén”. Therefore, this paper closely examined how neighboring countries in the Chinese character cultural sphere handled this issue for the establishment of standard Chinese character forms. In addition, this paper presents two suggestions that can serve as a reference in dealing with this issue in the process of revising domestic Chinese fonts based on the examples of other East Asian countries. First, based on Shuowenjiezi, for the characters containing “人 rén” in Xiaozhuan style, the forms with “儿 rén” are regarded as a standard in Kaishu style as well. Second, in consideration of the findings of Chinese grammatological studies and the tradition of Kaishu style in actual calligraphic practice, the forms with “几 jī” are regarded as a standard except for “宂 rǒng”, “呪 zhòu” and other characters that have been clearly known to include “儿 rén” for etymological reasons.<BR> The most important point is, whichever of the two is adopted, to improve the systemicity and regularity in the structure of Chinese characters by unifying the different component forms to a fullest extent. As the current issue, that the forms of the same component change slightly depending on the character or the forms of characters vary depending on the font, has a very negative effect on Chinese character education, an improvement is urgently needed.