⼩

森の間の⼩男

⼩ is unicode character number 12073 (see Utf8table)

Phonetic

In Japanese, ⼩ can be pronounced as
"ショウ", "ちい-さい", "こ", "お";
"shō", "chii-sai", "ko", "o"

Semantic

⼩ may mean "small", "tiny", "young"

⼩ is often followed by the two hiragana characters, ⼩さな;
these two hiragana characters show, that ⼩ refers to size od the object.

Synonym: 小

Character
小 (小 (& # 2 3 5 6 7 ;))
is synonym of
⼩ (⼩ (& # 1 2 0 7 3 ;)):
In the most of software, these characters have similar pictures (that may cause confusion mentioned below);
in Japanese, these characters have similar meaning ("small") and similar pronunciation ("chiisai").

Antonyms: ⼤ and 大

岩の間の⼤男

Unicode characters
⼤ (⼤ (& # 1 2 0 6 8 ;)),
大 (大 (& # 2 2 8 2 3 ;)),
can be interpreted as antonyms of ⼩. In Japanese and in Chinese, these characters may have meaning the opposite meaning; each of ⼤ and 大 may mean "big", "large", "huge".

Encoding

Html input:
⼩ (⼩ (& # 1 2 0 7 3 ;))
⼩ (⼩ (& # x 2 F 2 9 ;))

⼩ is encoded with 3 bytes:
xE2 xBC xA0 in the hexadecimal representation and
226 188 169 in the decimal representation

This encoding is compared to encoding of related characters by the PHP program below:

<?php
function mb_str_split($str) {
 // split multibyte string in characters
 // at all positions, not after the start: ^
 // and not before the end: $
 $pattern = '/(?<!^)(?!$)/u';
 return preg_split($pattern,$str);
}

function uniord($a) 
{
 $M=strlen($a);
 $p=ord($a[0]);                    if($M==1) return $p;
 $p-=194;  $p*=64; $p+=ord($a[1]); if($M==2) return $p;
 $p-=2050; $p*=64; $p+=ord($a[2]);           return $p;
}

$a='⼤ 大 ⼩ 小'; /* two pairs of different unicode characters separated with spacebars */

$N=strlen($a);
echo "The array has $N bytes; here is its splitting:\n";

for($n=0;$n<$N;$n++)
{
printf("%02x ",ord($a[$n]) );
}
echo "\n";

$b = mb_str_split($a);

var_dump($b);
$M=count($b);

#mb_internal_encoding("UTF-8");

for($m=0;$m<$M;$m++)
{
printf("\n");
$c=$b[$m];
$u=uniord($c);
printf("Unicode character number %05d id est, x%04x\n",$u,$u);
$d=strlen($c);
echo "Picture: $c uses $d bytes. These bytes are:\n";
for($n=0;$n<$d;$n++) printf("x%2x ",ord($c[$n]));
printf("in the hexadecimal representation and\n");
for($n=0;$n<$d;$n++) printf("%3d ",ord($c[$n]));
printf("in the decimal representation\n");
}
?>

The output is:

The array has 15 bytes; here is its splitting:
e2 bc a4 20 e5 a4 a7 20 e2 bc a9 20 e5 b0 8f 
array(7) {
  [0]=>
  string(3) "⼤"
  [1]=>
  string(1) " "
  [2]=>
  string(3) "大"
  [3]=>
  string(1) " "
  [4]=>
  string(3) "⼩"
  [5]=>
  string(1) " "
  [6]=>
  string(3) "小"
}

Unicode character number 12068 id est, x2f24
Picture: ⼤ uses 3 bytes. These bytes are:
xe2 xbc xa4 in the hexadecimal representation and
226 188 164 in the decimal representation

Unicode character number 00032 id est, x0020
Picture:   uses 1 bytes. These bytes are:
x20 in the hexadecimal representation and
 32 in the decimal representation

Unicode character number 22823 id est, x5927
Picture: 大 uses 3 bytes. These bytes are:
xe5 xa4 xa7 in the hexadecimal representation and
229 164 167 in the decimal representation

Unicode character number 00032 id est, x0020
Picture:   uses 1 bytes. These bytes are:
x20 in the hexadecimal representation and
 32 in the decimal representation

Unicode character number 12073 id est, x2f29
Picture: ⼩ uses 3 bytes. These bytes are:
xe2 xbc xa9 in the hexadecimal representation and
226 188 169 in the decimal representation

Unicode character number 00032 id est, x0020
Picture:   uses 1 bytes. These bytes are:
x20 in the hexadecimal representation and
 32 in the decimal representation

Unicode character number 23567 id est, x5c0f
Picture: 小 uses 3 bytes. These bytes are:
xe5 xb0 x8f in the hexadecimal representation and
229 176 143 in the decimal representation

The program reveals the encoding of the four related Unicode characters:
⼤ (⼤ (& # 1 2 0 6 8 ;)),
大 (大 (& # 2 2 8 2 3 ;)),
⼩ (⼩ (& # 1 2 0 7 3 ;)),
小 (小 (& # 2 3 5 6 7 ;))

Keywords

Japanese, Kanji, SomeU, Unicode, Utf8, UtfH, Utf8table,

⼤ (⼤ (& # 1 2 0 6 8 ;)), 大 (大 (& # 2 2 8 2 3 ;)), ⼩ (⼩ (& # 1 2 0 7 3 ;)), 小 (小 (& # 2 3 5 6 7 ;))