[Lingo] 喩 versus 喻

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Daniel A. Ramaley writes:
 > Hello. I'm wondering whether 2 kanji are variants of each other, or 
 > completely separate. The 2 in question are 喩 (U+55A9) and 喻 (U+55BB).
 > 
 > I'm studying kanji using Heisig's _Remembering the Kanji_ books and they 
 > list the latter, but other online sources only include the former.
 > 
 > Wiktionary has Japanese readings for both, see:
 >     http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/喩
 >     http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/喻
 > 
 > I've encountered some comments that indicate 喩 is a traditional form and 
 > that 喻 is simplified, but i thought the traditional/simplified 
 > distinction only applied to Chinese.

No.  For example, 學 is the parent character of 学, both being JIS
0208 standard.  As far as I know they're completely substitutable
(except that 学 is 教育漢字).  Such character pairs invariably proceed
in the direction of simplification.  However, this is different from
the case of Chinese.  In the case of Chinese, the (Communist) Chinese
government systematically simplified "kanji parts", including
radicals.  But in Japanese the simplification is sporadic and doesn't
extend to radicals.

However, this doesn't seem to be a case of simplification.  It's just
some kind of variant.  This kind of thing is often classified as "a
copyist's error".

 > Did Heisig simply include the wrong kanji when he put 喻,
 > or are they both acceptable and equivalent variants of each other,

I originally wrote "Yes.  None of the sources I've used have it,
either.  It's not in JIS" and "Not in this case", but I'll defer to
Jim B on this.  I don't have an opinion on whether these two should
have been unified.  I assume that the issue is round-tripping in one
or more authoritative national standards.

 > or is there something else going on?

So ... a month ago I was at a Ruby symposium, and the guy who talked
about getting an ISO standard for Ruby is deeply involved in
standardization efforts for Japanese.  He mentioned that aside from
JIS there are two other, completely separate kanji standards in the
Japanese government -- with entirely incompatible encodings, and until
very recently no complete translation tables existed.

"Something else going on" doesn't begin to describe it.

But I digress...

Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!