The less-than-three kanji

[pne]

As you may or may not know, JIS codes for kanji use only seven bits; in ISO-2022-JP, kanji are distinguished from ASCII characters by escape sequences introducing and ending sequences of JIS characters. So (nearly) all sequences of two ASCII characters can also be interpreted as JIS characters.

Even the famous sequence "<3" :) It corresponds to 竺.

Comments

[marikochan.livejournal.com]

How about XD? ;)?

I was rather disappointed with the kanji for <3... It only shows up in one word in the online dictionary I use, which is 竺学【じくがく】 = Indian studies or Buddhist studies. By itself it apparently means "bamboo."

Re: XD

[pne.livejournal.com]

XD is 慊.

Re: :)

[pne.livejournal.com]

And :) is 懇 and ;) is 皐 ^^ (湎)

Re: :)

[marikochan.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I don't actually know any of those characters; will have to look them up as well.

Re: :)

[pne.livejournal.com]

I only knew the middle one since it's used in the old name of the fifth lunar month (satsuki) - though I don't know its meaning by itself.

[denial-land.livejournal.com]

....aww.

[jordik.livejournal.com]

And does that Kanji mean anything just by itself? (I am not too familiar with how Jap writing works).

[pne.livejournal.com]

"bamboo", apparently, as marikochan said (http://www.livejournal.com/users/pne/278765.html?thread=801005#t801005).

(Good point in asking, though; not all characters have a meaning by themselves and are nearly always used together with other characters. But most do.)