㆗

  X3197 ㆗, X4E2D 中 at Mac.   X3197 ㆗, X4E2D 中 at Linux

X3197 ㆗ is Unicode character number 12695.

At some computers, character X3197 ㆗ look similar to character X4E2D 中, see figure at right. This may cause confusions: text, written at one computer, may be unreadable at another.

Character X3197 ㆗ and similar character X4E2D 中 are qualified as Naka.

In Japanese, ㆗ can be pronounced Naka and mean into, get inside, in, at the middle, among. The example of the semantics are shown in figures at right.

Semantic and synonyms

ひとはボトルの中へきます

ひとの中ヘボトルがあります

Character X3197 ㆗ has synonyms.

Character X4E2D 中 has similar meanings (inside, within, between, among, house, home), similar picture and similar pronunciation, that may cause a confusion. For year 2021, this confusion is not mentioned by The Unicode Utilities .

Character X5185 内 has similar meanings (inside, within, between, among, house, home), but different picture and different pronunciations: Tei, Dai, Uchi.

Pictures for characters X3197 ㆗ and X4E2D 中 are similar.
Even a native Japanese speaker, looking at ㆗, 中 is unlikely to answer:
Which of them is X3197?
Which of them is X4E2D?

In order to avoid confusions, some programming is necessary.
The Utf8 encodings of these synonyms can be calculated with PHP programs du.t or ud.t activated with commands

php du.t ㆗中内

or

php ud.t 3197 4E2D 5185

that produce similar outputs. Part of the output:

3197 12695 ㆗ ㆗
Unicode character number 12695 id est, X3197
Picture: ㆗ ; uses 3 bytes. These bytes are:
XE3 X86 X97 in the hexadecimal representation and
227 134 151 in the decimal representation

4E2D 20013 中 中
Unicode character number 20013 id est, X4E2D
Picture: 中 ; uses 3 bytes. These bytes are:
XE4 XB8 XAD in the hexadecimal representation and
228 184 173 in the decimal representation

5185 20869 内 内
Unicode character number 20869 id est, X5185
Picture: 内 ; uses 3 bytes. These bytes are:
XE5 X86 X85 in the hexadecimal representation and
229 134 133 in the decimal representation

The software seem not to confuse characters ㆗中内, as it takes place for the KanjiConfudal unicode characters. In such a way, the confusion mentioned refers only to the graphical representation of the characters.

Naka

View of characters X3197 depends on the software. At Macintosh, characters X3197 and X4E2D look similar.

At Macintosh, these characters look like this:

At Linux, these characters look like this:

At your computer, they look like this: ㆗中

The previous section gives hint, how to distinguish character X3197 ㆗ from X4E2D 中, if the character appears in a file or in a website; the PHP program du.t does the job.

In the case, when the character ㆗ or 中 is already printed, it may be difficult to identify it. In such a case, the correct specification is

"X3197 ㆗ or X4E2D 中"

In TORI, the short term naka is defined as short substitute of the cumbersome construction above.

Jisho

At year 2021, dictionary Jisho makes difference between characters ㆗ and 中.

For character X3197 ㆗
https://jisho.org/search/㆗ says "Sorry, couldn't find anything matching ㆗"

For character X4E2D 中,
https://jisho.org/search/中 gives description of Kanji X4E2D 中

Similar observations apply to Nihongomaster and Kotobank.

Wictionary

Wictionary suggests: :

中点（ちゅうてん）。

漢文の訓読文に用いる返り点である上中下点の1つ。

一二点を付けた訓読文を中間に挟んで、その下から上に返って読む場合に用いる。

上下点までで足りれば中点は使用しない

Popularity

Character X3197 ㆗ seems to be less usual than Character X4E2D 中.

No semantic difference between these two characters is detected.

No sentence is found, where substitution of character X3197 ㆗ to character X4E2D 中 modifies the meaning, except sentences that refer to encoding of the characters or the appearance in some texts or site.

For this reason, in TORI, character X3197 ㆗ is recommended for replacement to character X4E2D 中 in all cases, when this does not modify the meaning.

References

Keywords

Confusion, Japanese, Kanji, Liunux, Macintosh, Naka, Unicode, X3197 ㆗ , X4E2D 中