() writes and explains a
biáng character on Xi'an TV. There are many variations of the
character for
biáng, but the most widely accepted version is made up of 58 strokes in its traditional form (42 in simplified Chinese). It is one of the most
complex Chinese characters in modern usage, although it is not found in modern dictionaries or even in the
Kangxi dictionary. The character is composed of (speak; 7 strokes) in the middle flanked by (tiny; 2 × 3 strokes) on both sides. Below it, (horse; 10 strokes) is similarly flanked by (grow; 2 × 8 strokes). This central block itself is surrounded by (moon; 4 strokes) to the left, (heart; 4 strokes) below, and (knife; 2 strokes) to the right. These in turn are surrounded by a second layer of characters, namely (cave; 5 strokes) on the top and (walk; 4 strokes) curving around the left and bottom.
Computer entry and phonetic substitution Both the
traditional and
simplified Chinese characters for
biáng were encoded in
Unicode, on 20 March 2020, for Unicode 13.0.0. The code point is U+30EDE for the traditional form (𰻞) and U+30EDD for the simplified form (𰻝). Until that point, there were no standardized ways of entering or representing them on computers. Both traditional and simplified forms had been submitted to the
Ideographic Rapporteur Group for inclusion in
CJK Unified Ideographs Extension G. As the characters are not widely available on computers (and not supported by many fonts), images of the characters, phonetic substitutes like () or (), as well as the pinyin, are often used instead. The character is described by the following
ideographic description sequences (IDSs): (traditional) (simplified) In Adobe's
Source Han Sans (prior to 2.002) and
Source Han Serif font these IDS sequences do not display as IDS sequences, but display the actual glyphs for the character.
Unicode After an email discussion with Lee Collins, John Jenkins submitted an application of "" in 2006. However, its
IDS was too long at the time and "radical 心 (heart)" is missing from the character shape. Ming Fan () submitted an application to the
Unicode Consortium. At WS 2015, the traditional character had a code of UTC-00791 and the code of its simplified character is UTC-01312. However, the evidence for this character does not fully match the character shape. For UTC-00791, "radical 刂 (knife)" has disappeared from the dictionary (which is used as evidence). For UTC-01312, "radical 刂 (knife)" has become "radical 戈 (dagger-axe)" in the academic paper used as evidence. Members of the Unicode Consortium supported the character shape. In what could partly be an
April fools' joke, Toshiya Suzuki suggested adding a new block ("CJK Complex Ideographic Symbols"), setting "" as a basic shape, unifying the variation and even admitting "" as a variant of the character. The character's traditional and simplified forms were added to
Unicode version 13.0 in March 2020 in the
CJK Unified Ideographs Extension G block of the newly allocated
Tertiary Ideographic Plane. The corresponding Unicode characters are: • Traditional: U+30EDE 𰻞 • Simplified: U+30EDD 𰻝
Mnemonics for
biáng according to the mnemonic, not according to the principles of
stroke order. There are a number of
mnemonics used by
Shaanxi residents to aid recall of how the character is written. One version runs as follows:
Origin of the character biangbiang noodle restaurant. The Traditional character for
biáng is combined with the Simplified character for
miàn. The origins of the biangbiang noodles and the character
biáng are unclear. In one version of the story, the character
biáng was invented by the
Qin dynasty Premier
Li Si. However, since the character is not found in the
Kangxi Dictionary, it may have been created much later than the time of Li Si. Similar characters were found used by
Tiandihui. In the 2007 season of the
TVB show
The Web (), the show's producers tried to find the origin of the character by contacting university professors, but they could not verify the Li Si story or the origin of the character. It was concluded that the character was invented by a noodle shop. A legend about a student fabricating a character for the noodle to get out of a biangbiang noodle bill also is a commonly believed hypothesis about the origin of the character. According to a
China Daily article, the word "biang" is an
onomatopoeia that actually refers to the sound made by the chef when he creates the noodles by pulling the dough and slapping it on the table.
Variants More than twenty variants of the Traditional character for
biáng, having between 56 and 70 strokes: (Apart from the original character and its simplified form, these variants are not yet registered in Unicode.) ==See also==