Irregular characters mainly refer to: traditional Chinese characters and variant characters.
1. Traditional Chinese characters
Traditional Chinese characters, also known as Traditional Chinese, are called "Traditional Chinese" in European and American countries. Generally speaking, they refer to the simplified character movement that simplifies Chinese characters. Replaced Chinese characters sometimes also refer to the entire Chinese regular script and official script writing system before the Chinese character simplification movement. Traditional Chinese has a history of more than two thousand years, and until 1956 it was the standard Chinese character commonly used by Chinese people everywhere.
The "General List of Simplified Characters" actually contains 2274 simplified characters and 14 simplified radicals such as 讠[訁],饣[堠],纺[糹],钅[釒]. The sources of simplified characters include common characters, Ancient characters, cursive script, etc. also include merging Chinese characters, such as "hou" in "behind" and "hou" in "queen". In traditional Chinese characters, they are originally two characters. In order to omit strokes, "hou" with fewer strokes is unified. "After" was replaced.
Regions that still use traditional Chinese characters include Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. Overseas Chinese communities such as Singapore and Malaysia mostly use traditional and simplified characters. In mainland China, in cultural relics and monuments, variant characters of surnames, calligraphy and seal cutting, handwritten inscriptions, special needs, etc. Keep or use traditional Chinese characters.
2. Variant characters
Variant characters are a group of characters that are written in a way other than the traditional Chinese character. The pronunciation and meaning of the character are the same but the shape of the character is different. It is also called Youti, or Ti, and is called Chongwen in Shuowenjiezi, which refers to Chinese characters with the same pronunciation and meaning but different writing methods.
Since Chinese characters are composed of meaning symbols, musical notes and symbols, the angle of selecting the meaning symbols varies from person to person, and the musical notes are different from the letters in Pinyin text. Therefore, the phenomenon of multiple shapes in one character is The history of Chinese characters is full of them. It should be noted that variant characters are not the same as traditional characters.
Narrowly defined variant characters: characters that have the same pronunciation and synonyms as the prescribed traditional Chinese characters but are written differently.
For example, in the sentence "'A' is a variant of 'B'", "A" is a variant in a narrow sense, and "B" is a traditional Chinese character.
Broadly defined variant characters: Chinese characters with the same pronunciation and meaning but different writing methods.
For example, in the sentence "'A' and 'B' are variant characters of each other", "A" and "B" are both variant characters in a broad sense, regardless of which one is the traditional Chinese character.
Sometimes the concept of variant characters also includes characters that are often borrowed or even used in common.
The commonly known concept of variant characters is variant characters in a narrow sense. For example, "Kao" is a variant of "Lao", "鬬" is a variant of "Keng", and "Feng" is a variant of "Feng".
Variants can be further divided into "complete variants" (the pronunciation and meaning are the same under all circumstances) and "partial variants" (the same only in certain circumstances).
Extended information
Article 17 of the "Law of the People's Republic of China on the Standard Spoken and Written Language" stipulates the circumstances under which traditional Chinese characters and variant characters are allowed to be retained or used:
(1) Cultural relics and historic sites;
(2) Variant characters in surnames;
(3) Calligraphy, seal cutting and other artistic works;
(4) Handwritten characters for inscriptions and signboards;
(5) Needed for use in publishing, teaching, and research;
(6) Special circumstances approved by relevant departments of the State Council.