i was searching the Internet to find what does this calligraphed kanji mean.
i tried searching Nihongoresources, but it was too difficult, because i wasn't able to count the strokes and recognize radicals. after that, i assumed that the sign is popular enough to be found through graphic search, and i succeed to find that it reads "kotobuki" and means 'congratulations, long life' etc.
now, i found that the kanji for "kotobuki" is 寿. but it doesn't seem too similar to the kanji in calligraphy [the dot is replaced].
so my question is: are these two [the one on my picture and 寿] just two representations of one kanji, or was the old kanji for "kotobuki" substituted with a new one [寿] and remained only in traditional calligraphy? or was it simplified to 寿?
and what is the equivalent in Chinese, both simplified and traditional of this / these kanji?
