Variant Chinese characters

Two road signs in San Po Kong, Hong Kong indicating the same name for Kai Tak with different variants (啓 and 啟) of the character for "Kai".

Chinese characters may have several variant forms—visually distinct glyphs that represent the same underlying meaning and pronunciation. Variants of a given character are allographs of one another, and many are directly analogous to allographs present in the English alphabet, such as the double-storey ⟨a⟩ and single-storey ⟨ɑ⟩ variants of the letter A, with the latter more commonly appearing in handwriting. Some contexts require usage of specific variants.

Variant character
Regional variants of the character 返 as rendered by the Source Han Sans font family
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	異體字
Simplified Chinese	异体字
Literal meaning	variant character form
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin yìtǐzì Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization yihtáijih Jyutping ji6-tai2-zi6
Alternative Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	又體
Simplified Chinese	又体
Literal meaning	alternative form
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin yòutǐ Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization yauhtái Jyutping jau6-tai2
Second alternative Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	或體
Simplified Chinese	或体
Literal meaning	or form
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin huòtǐ Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization waahktái Jyutping waak6-tai2
Third alternative Chinese name
Chinese	重文
Literal meaning	alternative writing
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin chóngwén Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization chùngmàn Jyutping cung4-man4
Vietnamese name
Vietnamese alphabet	chữ dị thể
Hán-Nôm	𡨸異體
Korean name
Hangul	이체자
Transcriptions Revised Romanization icheja
Japanese name
Kanji	異体字
Transcriptions Romanization itaiji