Extended shinjitai

Extended shinjitai (拡張新字体, kakuchō shinjitai, lit. "extended new character form") is the extension of the shinjitai (officially simplified kanji). They are the simplified versions of some of the hyōgaiji (表外字, kanji not included in the jōyō kanji list). They are unofficial characters; the official forms of these hyōgaiji are still kyūjitai (traditional characters).

Simplified forms[]

When the 1,850 character-long tōyō kanji list was produced in 1949, many characters were simplified from their original forms, and the new simpler forms became the standard kanji used in Japanese writing. For instance, the characters 學, 國, and 體 became 学, 国, and 体, respectively. The jōyō kanji list, issued in 1981, contained additional simplifications such as 罐, 螢, and 龍 becoming 缶, 蛍, and 竜. In addition, the character 燈, which had already been included during the formation of the tōyō kanji list, became 灯. A total of 357 characters were reformed from kyūjitai (old character form) to become shinjitai (new character form) when the jōyō kanji list was created (辨, 瓣, and 辯 were merged into a single character: 弁, bringing the total number of new shinjitai down to 355).

However, as a result of adopting simplified characters, kanji that shared the same structural elements (radicals or other phono-semantic compounds) were not all simplified in the same way. For instance, 賣, 續, and 讀, which were included in the list, were simplified as 売, 続, and 読, although the first one is not the same component but simply looks similar. On the other hand, the hyōgaiji 贖, 犢, and 牘 – which contain the same element (