From: Andrew C. West (andrewcwest@alumni.princeton.edu)
Date: Thu Feb 06 2003 - 10:47:19 EST
James Kass wrote,
> (What happens if someone discovers a 257th variant? Do they
> get a prize? Or, would they be forever banished from polite
> society?)
I was thinking about that. 256 variants of a single character may seem a tad
excessive, but there is a common Chinese decoartive motif (frequently seen on
trays and tea-pots and scarves and such like) comprising the ideograph shou4
(U+58FD, U+5900, U+5BFF) "longevity" written in 100 variant forms (called "bai3
shou4 tu2" in Chinese). See
http://www.tydao.com/sxsu/shenhuo/minju/images/mj17.htm for an example.
A quick google on "qian1 shou4 tu2" (the ideograph "shou4" written in a thousand
different forms) came up with a piece of calligraphy by Wang Yunzhuang (b.1942)
which comprises the ideograph shou4 written in no less than 1,256 unique variant
forms !
Googling on "wan4 shou4 tu2" (the ideograph "shou4" written in 10,000 forms)
also had a number of hits, but these refer to a compilation of calligraphy by
forty artists that took 16 years to create (written on a scroll 160 metres in
length), so these may not all be unique variants.
There are also a number of other auspicious characters, such as fu2 (U+798F)
"good fortune" that may be found written in a hundred variant forms as a
decorative motif.
All in all the new variant selectors may be kept quite busy if applied to the
ideograph shou4 and its friends !
Andrew
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