Ghost characters (幽霊文字, yūrei moji) are erroneous kanji included in the Japanese Industrial Standard, JIS X 0208. 12 of the 6,355 kanji characters are ghost characters.
Overview
In 1978, the Ministry of Trade and Industry established the standard JIS C 6226 (later JIS X 0208.) This standard defined 6349 characters as JIS Level 1 and 2 Kanji characters. This set of Kanji characters is called "JIS Basic Kanji". At this time, the following four lists of Kanji characters were used as sources.[1]: 269f
- Kanji Table for Standard Codes (Draft): IPSJ Kanji Code Committee (1971)
- National Land Administrative Districts Directory: Geographical Society of Japan (1972)
- Nippon Seimei's family name table: Nippon Life (1973, no longer extant)
- Basic Kanji for Administrative Information Processing: Administrative Management Agency (1975)
At the time of the establishment of the standard, the authority for each character was not clearly stated, and it was pointed out that some characters had unknown meanings and usage examples. The term "ghost character" was coined from "ghost word," meaning a word that is included in dictionaries but has no practical use.[2] The most common examples are "妛" and "彁". These characters were never mentioned in the Kangxi Dictionary or the Dai Kan-Wa Jiten, a comprehensive collection of ancient Chinese character books.
In 1997, the drafting committee for the revised standard, led by its chairman, Koji Shibano, and Hiroyuki Sasahara of the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics, investigated the literature referred to in the drafting of the 1978 standard. It was revealed that many of the characters that had been considered ghost characters were actually kanji used in place names.
According to the survey, prior to the drafting of the 1978 standard, the Administrative Management Agency had compiled eight lists of Kanji characters, including the above 1–3, in 1974, entitled "Frequency of Use and Correspondence Analysis Results of Kanji Characters for Selection of Standard Kanji Characters for Administrative Information Processing." This is accompanied by a list of kanji characters and their original sources. The results of this correspondence analysis, rather than the original sources, were referred to when selecting the JIS basic kanji at that time. Of these, many ghost characters were found to be included in those based on the Comprehensive list of administrative divisions of national land and List of Kanji characters for personal names by Nippon Life Insurance Company. In particular, the List of Kanji characters for personal names had no original source at the time of drafting the first standard, and its contents have been pointed out to be inadequate.[3]
In response to these results, the Standard Revision Committee restored the 1972 edition of the Comprehensive list of administrative divisions of national land from its proofreading history, and checked all the kanji appearing in the book against all the pages to confirm the examples.
In addition, as a replacement for the List of Kanji characters for personal names, which no longer exists, they conducted an exhaustive literature search, including a comparative study of the NTT and Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Public Corporation telephone directory databases and a survey of more than 30 ancient and modern character books.
12 kanji characters remain unidentified. 3 appear to be typos. Perhaps by coincidence, there are eight characters that were listed in the Japanese ancient dictionary or the Chinese ancient dictionary. As for "彁", no concrete source has been found.[1]: 269f
Ghost characters have already been adopted into international standards such as Unicode, and changes to these standards are likely to cause compatibility problems, making it virtually impossible to modify or remove ghost characters.
List of ghost characters
The results of the aforementioned survey by Hiroyuki Sasahara et al. are summarized in Annex 7, "Detailed Description of Ward Locations," of JIS X 0208:1997. This section excerpts some of them.
JIS X 0208:1997 compiles the details of the sources of 72 characters whose sources have been identified, mainly those not listed in both Morohashi's Dai Kan-Wa Jiten and Kadokawa's Shin Jigen. However, this also includes characters that have been found to be misspelled by the original sources.
The list of delimiters appended as "source authority" in Annex 7 of JIS X 0208:1997 lists 72 characters, but the detailed text does not list "鰛(82-60)", which is only 71 characters.
The table below shows examples.
| Character | Address | Source/Usage |
|---|---|---|
| 垈 | 52-18 | There are examples in the National Land Administrative Districts Directory. 藤垈 (Fujinuta), 相垈 (Ainuta), 大垈 (Onuta), all in Yamanashi Prefecture |
| 垉 | 52-21 | There are examples in the National Land Administrative Districts Directory. 垉六 (Horoku), Aichi Prefecture |
| 岾 | 54-19 | There are examples in the National Land Administrative Districts Directory. 広岾 (Hiroyama), Kyoto Prefecture |
| 恷 | 55-78 | Based on Nippon Seimei's family name table. There are also examples in the NTT telephone directory. |
| 橸 | 60-81 | Dictionary of Japanese Place Names. 石橸 (Ishidaru), Shizuoka Prefecture. |
| 汢 | 61-73 | There are examples in the National Land Administrative Districts Directory. 汢の川 (Nutanokawa), Kochi Prefecture. |
| 碵 | 66-83 | Based on Nippon Seimei's family name table. There are also examples in the NTT telephone directory. |
| 穃 | 67-46 | There is an example of usage in the National Land Administrative Districts Directory, but it is a typo in the original source. 穃原 (Youbaru, 榕原) in Okinawa Prefecture. |
| 粐 | 68-68 | There are examples in the National Land Administrative Districts Directory. 粐蒔沢 (Nukamakizawa), Akita Prefecture. |
| 粭 | 68-70 | There are examples in the National Land Administrative Districts Directory. 粭島 (Sukumojima), Yamaguchi Prefecture. |
| 粫 | 68-72 | There is an example in the National Land Administrative Districts Directory, but it is a typo in the original source. 粫田 (Uruchida, 糯田) in Fukushima Prefecture. |
| 糘 | 68-84 | There are examples in the National Land Administrative Districts Directory. 糘尻 (Sukumojiri), Hiroshima Prefecture. |
| 膤 | 71-19 | There are examples in the National Land Administrative Districts Directory. 膤割 (Yukiwari), Kumamoto Prefecture. |
| 軅 | 77-32 | There is an example in the National Land Administrative Districts Directory, but it does not exist. 軅飛 (Takatobu), Fukushima Prefecture. |
| 鍄 | 78-93 | There are examples in the National Land Administrative Districts Directory. 小鍄 (Kogasugai), Yamagata Prefecture. |
| 鵈 | 82-94 | There is an example in the National Land Administrative Districts Directory, but it is a typo in the original source. 鵈沢 (Misagosawa, 鵃沢), Fukushima Prefecture. |
Unknown sources
JIS X 0208:1997 treats the 12 characters in the table below as "Authority unknown," "Unknown," or "Unidentifiable" because it is not certain which of the four aforementioned lists of kanji is the source of the characters.
Since ghost characters are "kanji that do not exist", the readings are given "for convenience".
| Character | Code | Supposed pronunciation | Source | Other appearances |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 墸 | 52-55 | チョ cho | Origin unknown. | It is in the Jiyun abridgment, but it may be miswritten. |
| 壥 | 52-63 | デン den | Origin unknown. May be a typo of "㕓". | Written in the Wagokuhen. |
| 妛 | 54-12 | シ shi | This character is cited in the National Land Administrative Districts Directory, but it is not there. May be a typo of "𡚴". | It is in the Jikyōshū abridgment, but it may be miswritten. |
| 彁 | 55-27 | カ ka
セイ sei |
Source unknown. Possibly a typo of "彊" etc. | None. |
| 挧 | 57-43 | ウ u
トチ tochi |
The site is cited in the National Land and Administrative Districts Directory, but it is not there. Possibly a typo of "栩" etc. | Zhonghua Zihai and others. |
| 暃 | 58-83 | ヒ hi | The site is cited in the National Land and Administrative Districts Directory, but it is not there. Possibly a typo of "杲" etc. | It is found in the Zhiyi. |
| 椦 | 59-91 | ケン ken | The site is cited in the National Land and Administrative Districts Directory, but it is not there. Possibly a typo of "橳" etc. | It is found in the Yiqiejing yinyi. |
| 槞 | 60-57 | ル ru
ロウ rou |
The site is cited in the National Land and Administrative Districts Directory, but it is not there. Possibly a typo of "橦". | 宋元以來俗字譜 ("Popular calligraphy since the Song and Yuan Dynasties") published by the Institute of History and Linguistics, Academia Sinica of the Republic of China in 1930. |
| 蟐 | 74-12 | ジョウ jou
モム momu |
The Basic Kanji for Administrative Information Processing is used as the source (Meiji Mutual Life Insurance Company Kanji Code Table), but there are no examples. | It is found in the Shinsen Jikyō. |
| 袮 | 74-57 | ネ ne
ナイ nai |
The site is cited in the National Land and Administrative Districts Directory, but it is not there. Possibly a typo of "祢". | Shinsen Jikyō, Ruiju Myōgishō and others. |
| 閠 | 79-64 | ギョク gyoku
ニン nin |
The site is cited in the National Land and Administrative Districts Directory, but it is not there. Possibly a miswritten of "閏". | It's listed on Guangyun, but it is probably a typo. |
| 駲 | 81-50 | シュウ shu
ジュン jun |
The source of the information is the Nihon Seimei Jinmei Chart, but the original source is not available. | It is found in the Ruiju Myōgishō. |
Possible typos
Some of the characters of unknown authority are believed to have been miswritten by the standard's creator.
- It is possible that "壥" was miswritten because "㕓," which is similar to "壥," is not included in the JIS Basic Kanji. "㕓" is also not included in JIS X 0213.
- It is possible that "妛" was miswritten because "𡚴," which is similar to "妛," is not included in the JIS Basic Kanji. In the National Land Administrative Districts Index, the source for this document, there is a shadow-like print mark on the overlay that appears to have been created by cutting and pasting together parts of different characters when creating the block, and it is assumed that this was mistakenly transcribed as a horizontal stroke.[1]: 288, 289f, 292 [4]
- It is possible that "椦" was miswritten because "橳," which is similar to "椦," is not included in the JIS Basic Kanji.
Treatment in dictionaries
Since the establishment of the standard, the policy for compiling dictionaries has been to publish character books that are based on the assumption that all JIS basic Kanji characters are listed. For ghost characters, it is not possible to refer to past sources. Therefore, their treatment differed depending on the dictionaries and individual characters as follows.
Assign readings for convenience
In information equipment that implements JIS basic Kanji characters, it is not good enough that even ghost characters do not appear when converted as long as they are implemented. Therefore, they are often assigned a "phonetic reading", which is interpreted as a form of phonetic writing for convenience. Some dictionaries also list these convenient readings. Hiroyuki Sasahara points out that these readings may have been given based on a research report by the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association (1982) and published materials by NEC (1982) and IBM Japan (1983).[5]
Regarded as Glyph with similar characters
Some have assigned "駲" as a typo of "馴"[6] and "軅" as a typo of "軈".[7] None of these sources provide a source.
The character "妛" may be a typo of the very similar character "妛" (the upper "山" becomes "屮"), and it is found in the Dai Kan-Wa Jiten and Kangxi Dictionary.[8] This is also introduced in the JIS X 0208:1997 survey with an example of implicit merging with an authoritative source. These two characters are also merged into the same code point in Unicode.
Own interpretation
Since "竜" is a typo of "龍", there is an interpretation that "槞" is a typo of "櫳". Some dictionaries consider "鵈"="耳(ear)"+"鳥(bird)" to be the character for black kites.
Explain as unknown
After the results of the aforementioned research were known, the contents of these are generally adopted in dictionaries. The Dai Kan-Wa Jiten published a supplemental volume in 2000, and the Kadokawa Shin Jigen (New Character Source) published a revised new edition in 2017, both of which include some of the characters whose sources have been identified.
Why do ghost characters still remain?
| Unicode 1.1 | U+5788 | U+599B | U+5CBE |
|---|---|---|---|
| JIS X 0208-1990 (Japan) | 垈 (52-18) |
妛 (54-12) |
岾 (54-19) |
| CNS 11643-1992 (Taiwan) | - | 妛 (3-2553) |
- |
| KS C 5601-1987 (South Korea) | 垈 (535C) |
- | 岾 (6F40) |
Hiroyuki Sasahara et al. conducted a survey of ghost characters as part of the fourth revision of JIS X 0208 (1997). The so-called "83JIS revision" of the second standard (1983) had a history of causing great confusion due to incompatible modifications, mainly the replacement of punctuation marks. They couldn't let that happen again.
It was also necessary to maintain compatibility with Unicode. At the time of the survey, Unicode 1.1, which was enacted in 1993, already contained all JIS basic kanji. Therefore, the change at this juncture was not merely a domestic issue. In addition, Unicode adopts the source separation rule. According to this rule, for example, those recorded separately in JIS X 0208 are to maintain their separation. On the other hand, under the CJK Unified Ideographs policy, the same character code is assigned to different characters that are similar in China, Japan, Korea, etc. (see Han unification.) Because of this complicated process of Unicode creation, it was virtually impossible to exclude only Japanese ghost characters.
As a result, Japanese ghost characters remain in JIS Basic Kanji and Unicode.
Contemporary misuse
Since the publishing of the standard, examples of ghost characters have appeared along with their widespread use. In particular, ghost characters are often mistakenly used for similar characters.
The "祢宜", the title of the deputy manager of a Japanese shrine, is sometimes misused as "袮宜." (ネ or 衤) In some cases, the Japanese surname "栩谷" is mistaken for "挧谷." (木 or 扌)[1]: 292, 304 Japanese folklorist Motoji Niwa introduced the surname "妛芸凡" (Akiōshi) in his book.[2][9]
The Asahi Shimbun database contained the name "埼玉自彊会" printed in the February 23, 1923 edition of the Asahi Shimbun, but when it was digitized, it was incorrectly labeled "埼玉自彁会." It has now been corrected.[10]
Examples of use in fiction
Japanese tokusatsu television series Gosei Sentai Dairanger features a character named "嘉挧" (Kaku). The name is taken from the ancient Chinese statesman Jia Xu (賈詡), but the characters have been replaced by ghost characters because the character "詡" is not registered in JIS X 0208.
The book 5A73, by Japanese mystery writer Yuji Yomisaka, begins with a series of murders in which the ghost character "暃" is written on the bodies of the victims.[11]
The music game Beatmania IIDX includes a song titled "閠槞彁の願い" that uses ghost characters. According to the comments on the song, the pronunciation is "unpronounceable to humans" and is tentatively called "Gyokuroka no Negai" (ぎょくろうかのねがい).[12]
Similar cases in Unicode
Unicode's CJK Unified Ideographs also have characters whose inclusion history is unknown and are sometimes called "ghost characters" as well.
For example, it has been pointed out that the character "螀" (U+8780), which was also registered in Unicode because it was included in the CCITT Chinese Primary Set, may be a typographical error that was adopted without sufficiently checking the source.[13]
References
- 1 2 3 4 7ビット及び8ビットの2バイト情報交換用符号化漢字集合 [7-bit and 8-bit 2-byte information exchange encoded kanji set] (in Japanese). Japanese Standards Association. 1997.
- 1 2 笹原宏之[needs translation] (2007). 国字の位相と展開 [Phases and Development of the National Script] (in Japanese). Sanseidō. pp. 212, 788. ISBN 978-4-385-36263-2.
- ↑ 笹原宏之[needs translation] (9 April 2019). 第9回 民間の名字ランキング ——日本に多い名字とは？（4） [Vol. 9: Ranking of Surnames in the Private Sector — What are the most common surnames in Japan? (4)]. Taishukan (in Japanese). Retrieved 3 September 2023.
- ↑ 笹原宏之[needs translation] (2006). 日本の漢字 [Japanese Kanji]. Iwanami Shinsho (in Japanese). Iwanami Shoten. p. 82. ISBN 4-00-430991-3.
- ↑ 比留間直和[needs translation] (22 August 2011). 幽霊文字の読み、どこから — 変換辞書のはなし5 [Where do ghost characters come from?]. Asahi Shimbun (in Japanese). Retrieved 24 September 2023.
- ↑ 戸川芳郎[needs translation] (2016). 漢辞海 (in Japanese) (4th ed.). Sanseidō. ISBN 978-438-5-14048-3.
- ↑ 鎌田正, 米山寅太郎[needs translation] (2011). 新漢語林 (in Japanese) (2nd ed.). Taishūkan Shoten. ISBN 978-446-9-03163-8.
- ↑ Izuru, Shinmura (1998). Kōjien (in Japanese) (5th ed.). Iwanami Shoten. ISBN 978-400-0-80111-9.
- ↑ 丹羽基二[needs translation] (1998). 苗字のはなし2 [No Surname 2] (in Japanese). Houbunkan. p. 165. ISBN 978-4-990-05847-0.
- ↑ 比留間 直和[needs translation] (5 September 2011). 大正十二年の幽霊文字 [Ghost Characters of 1923] (in Japanese). Retrieved 10 September 2023.
- ↑ 詠坂雄二[needs translation] (2022). 5A73 (in Japanese). Kobunsha. ISBN 9784334914745.
- ↑ 閠槞彁の願い. beatmania IIDX 28 BISTROVER (in Japanese). Retrieved 10 September 2023.
- ↑ Yasuoka, Koichi; Yasuoka, Motoko (1997). 「唡」はなぜJIS X 0221に含まれているのか —Unicode幽霊字研究— [Why is "唡" included in JIS X 0221?] (PDF) (in Japanese). Information Processing Society of Japan.