This occurred just the other day and I never changed any font settings (aside from woelpad's Font Changer script, but the problem is on a global level, not just on this site), but suddenly my fonts (fonts, yes, changing the font doesn't fix anything) display different radicals and such, albeit only with kanji outside of the jouyou set. For example, horns are inverted, the spoons in the primitives siesta and wrap are replaced with signs of the snake. The altar in sacred Shinto tree 榊 is the full kanji for show, not the altar primitive (as does the same in 祇).

Therefore, nothing is truly wrong, per se, as everything is more than functional, but it peeves me when a flashcard appears to be wrong, as well as simply screwing up my day-to-day browsing. As mentioned, this does not affect any of the jouyou kanji, so I'd imagine that the variations are simply that: variations. However, if anyone knows how to restore my kanji to their prior forms I would most appreciate it.

Obligatory picture, crudely made in Paint within five seconds.

[ファブリス]

Could you give some details on your OS and native OS language ?

Do the radicals always change? Because in the "sacred shinto tree" example, the center primitive is the "altar" primitive in both cases. That's an interesting "issue" with your fonts.

The "heisig" version appears to be a kokuji. Could this be related to the issue? Perhaps a chinese/japanese character switch somewhere. Although if it is a kokuji, there should be no chinese equivalent... hmmm...

Similar to this thread?

On my PowerBook with Firefox and Safari the sacred Shinto tree alter is in its primitive form.

And perhaps similar to spinal column (2071) which sometimes shows up as PERSON rather than UMBRELLA for the first element.

I've revised my story twice for it now. Seems that it is indeed, UMBRELLA but I swear it looks more like PERSON more than half of the time.

ファブリス Wrote:Could you give some details on your OS and native OS language ?

Uh, not sure about the latter, but I'm running Vista Business. This issue isn't restricted to just my browser (Firefox), as I get the same results in other applications as well.

The issue is obviously font-related, but I have no idea what would trigger it. For the record, certain fonts are not affected (such as the Kozuka set), but most are.

By the way, this appears to be post 6666.

Hmm... interesting issue. Perhaps your browser or OS is using Chinese instead of Japanese to show the character?

For instance, check this Wiktionary page: it shows the "same" character for "briefcase" one way as Hanzi and another as Kanji.

In technobabble: it is the "same" kanji because it's the same value in the same encoding scheme, but the different glyphs are explained by the different languages used. Here's a relevant snippet of the source page from the link above that might make this easier to follow (or not):

Code:

<font style="font-size:125%"><font lang="zh" xml:lang="zh">鞄</font></font>
<font lang="ja" style="font-size:125%" xml:lang="ja">鞄</font>

The HTML source code uses the same character (鞄), but it renders two different glyphs on my browser.

Anyway, you might want to click the menu View -> Character Encoding of your Firefox to find out how it is interpreting a specific page, and also check your system's Language/Regional Settings.

Megaqwerty Wrote:This issue isn't restricted to just my browser (Firefox), as I get the same results in other applications as well.

Switching to Shift-JIS doesn't fix anything within Firefox (on the linked page, all the characters are exactly the same for me). Even if it did, this issue affects other font dependent applications, such as Wakan.

[ファブリス]

Megaqwerty, can you confirm whether or not you're seeing the two variations of the kanji following Ricardo's Wiktionary link (the kanji for "briefcase" as on your screenshot)?

Megaqwerty Wrote:Switching to Shift-JIS doesn't fix anything within Firefox (on the linked page, all the characters are exactly the same for me).

Wikitionary page does not show variations: all characters have sign of the snake substituted for self.

ファブリス Wrote:Could you give some details on your OS and native OS language ?

Ricardo Wrote:also check your system's Language/Regional Settings.

Did you do it? Did you check how your Windows Language/Regional Settings are configured? You can try to find this on your Control Panel and/or Language Bar on XP, but I don't know about Vista...

Ricardo Wrote:Did you do it? Did you check how your Windows Language/Regional Settings are configured?

Oh, sorry, I didn't see that and didn't check before. However, what am I looking for? I have the Japanese IME installed (unlike XP, there isn't a box saying that East Asian languages have been installed, if that's what you mean).