On Tue, 3 Oct 2000 11digitboy@bolt.com wrote:
> I have seen U+3007 classified as a Hanzi. Why is
> it not considered a Hanzi in Unicode? Because it
> is the only Hanzi that uses that stroke??
> If it is not a Hanzi, what, then, is it?
Hmm, that is odd indeed; however, it *is* named U+3007 IDEOGRAPHIC NUMBER
ZERO. My intuition is that U+3700 is equivalent to ling 'zero' U+96F6.
However, I think there may be another argument for a circle-like
character. In Ouyang Xiu's (U+6B50 U+967D U+4FEE) _Xin Tangshu_
(U+65B0 U+5510 U+66F8), one of the dynastic histories about the Tang
dynasty in China, in juan (U+5377) 76, page 3481, second column from the
right, fourth character (not counting the U+3001 IDEOGRAPHIC COMMA's),
there is a circle listed as one of many characters created by the female
emperor Wu Zetian (U+6B66 U+5247 U+5929). I have heard that this is
equivalent to xing 'star' (U+661F), but I have not been able to find
confirmation of this (someone please let me know if there is). (The same
passage does not say what the other characters in the list are equivalent
to, but they may be found in large dictionaries like Morohashi.)
Below is a scan of the passage, from a 1975 edition (typeset, of
course) published by Zhonghua (U+4E2D U+83EF) in Shanghai:
http://www.cohums.ohio-state.edu/deall/grads/chan.200/misc/xin_tangshu-76.3481.jpg
(Incidently, the first character in that list--first column from the
right, next to last character from the bottom--U+66CC, is a personal name
"ideograph", equivalent to U+7167; now available for public consumption
in China, Japan, and elsewhere, as equivalent to latter, as the original
bearer's dead.)
U+3007 isn't the only character that incorporates a circle--U+3514
does as well--I don't know what it is--the only source given is North
Korean, according to the unihan.txt file.
Thomas Chan
tc31@cornell.edu
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Tue Jul 10 2001 - 17:21:14 EDT
