Gourt Home::Gourt :: Horizontal and vertical writing in East Asian scripts
Languages using Chinese characters and similar glyphs, such as Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, can be oriented both horizontally and vertically, while the traditional Mongolian script and its offshoots (like Manchu) are written vertically. In Chinese, horizontal writing is known as hengpai (), while vertical writing is known as shupai (). In Japanese, horizontal writing is called yokogaki (横書き, "horizontal writing", also known as yokogumi, 横組み) and vertical writing is called tategaki (縦書き, "vertical writing", also known as tategumi, 縦組み).
Traditionally, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean are written vertically in columns going from top to bottom and ordered from right to left, with each new column starting to the left of the preceding one. The stroke order and stroke direction of Chinese characters (hanzi in Chinese, kanji in Japanese, hanja in Korean) and Japanese kana are designed to facilitate writing in this manner. In modern times, it has become increasingly common for these languages to be written horizontally, from left to right, with successive rows going from top to bottom, under the influence of European languages such as English.
Differences between horizontal and vertical writing
Chinese characters and Japanese kana can be written horizontally or vertically, although there are some styles of calligraphy, such as the Grass script, that are not suitable for horizontal writing. There are some small differences in orthography. In horizontal writing it is more common to use Arabic numerals, whereas Chinese numerals are more common in vertical text.
In both Chinese and Japanese, the positions of punctuation marks, for example the relative position of commas and full stops, differ between horizontal and vertical writing. Punctuation such as the parentheses, quotation marks, book title marks (Chinese), ellipsis mark, dash, wavy dash (Japanese), proper noun mark (Chinese), wavy book title mark (Chinese), emphasis mark, and chōon mark (Japanese) are all rotated 90 degrees when switching between horizontal and vertical text.
Where a text is written in horizontal format, pages are read in the same order as English books, with the binding at the left and pages progressing to the right. Vertical books are printed the other way round, with the binding at the right, and pages progressing to the left.
Ruby characters, like furigana in Japanese or zhuyin in Traditional Chinese, which provide a phonetic guide for unusual or difficult to read characters, follow the direction of the main text. Example in Japanese, with furigana in red:
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Inserted text in the Roman alphabet is usually written horizontally, or turned sideways when it appears in vertical text, with the base of the characters on the left.
Right-to-left horizontal writing
Historically, vertical writing was the standard system, and horizontal writing was only used where a sign had to fit in a constrained space, such as over the gate of a temple. This horizontal writing is in fact a special case of vertical writing in which each column contains just one character.
Right-to-left horizontal writing is still seen in Japan, China, and Korea, in such places as signs, on the right-hand side of vehicles, and on the right-hand side of stands selling food at festivals. It is also used to simulate archaic writing, for example in reconstructions of old Japan for tourists, and it is still found in the captions and titles of some newspapers. However, the left-to-right direction is now dominant in all three languages for horizontal writing: this is due partly to the influence of English, and partly to the increased use of computerized typesetting and word processing software, most of which does not directly support right-to-left layout of East Asian languages.
History
Japanese
Horizontal text originally came in to Japanese in the Meiji era when the Japanese tried to print dictionaries for Western languages. Initially the dictionaries were printed in a mixture of horizontal Western and vertical Japanese text, which meant the book had to be rotated ninety degrees in order to read the Japanese. Because this was unwieldy, the idea of yokogaki came to be accepted. One of the first publications to partially use yokogaki was a German to Japanese dictionary (袖珍挿図独和辞書, Shūchinsōzu Dokuwa Jisho, "pocket illustrated German to Japanese dictionary") published in 1885 (Meiji 18).At the very beginning of the change to horizontal alignment in Japan, in the Meiji era, there was a short-lived form called migi yokogaki (右横書き, literally "right yokogaki"), in contrast to hidari yokogaki, (左横書き, literally "left yokogaki"), the current standard. This resembled the right-to-left horizontal writing style of languages such as Arabic with line breaks on the left hand side of the page. It was probably based on the traditional single-column right-to-left writing. This form was never widely used, and has not survived.
Chinese
The first printed Chinese text in horizontal alignment was Robert Morrison's "Dictionary of the Chinese language", published in 1815-1823 in Macau.The earliest widely known Chinese publication using horizontal alignment was the magazine Science (科學). Its first issue in January 1915 explained the (then) unusual format:
- 本雜誌印法，旁行上左，並用西文句讀點之，以便插寫算術及物理化學諸程式，非故好新奇，讀者諒之。
- This magazine is printed so that it goes sideways from the top left and marked with Western punctuation. This is to make the insertion of mathematical, physical and chemical formulae convenient, not simply to seek new and unusual things. We ask our readers to excuse us.''
With the proliferation of horizontal text, both horizontal and vertical came to be used concurrently. Proponents of horizontal text argued that vertical text in right-to-left columns were smudged easily when written, and moreover demanded greater movement from the eyes when read. Vertical text proponents, on their part, considered horizontal text to be a break from established tradition.
After the success of the communist revolution in 1949, the People's Republic of China instituted the Simplified Chinese orthographical reform, and also decided that horizontal text should be used. All newspapers in mainland China were changed from vertical to horizontal alignment on January 1, 1956. Singapore later adopted Simplified Chinese characters, and vertical writing also became rare. In Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and among older overseas Chinese communities, "Traditional Chinese" (i.e. the original, unsimplified system) continues to be used but horizontal writing has been gradually adopted since the 1990s. By the early 2000s, most newspapers in these areas had switched to left-to-right horizontal writing, either entirely or in a combination of vertical text with horizontal left-to-right headings.
Usage
Simplified Chinese
In Mainland China and Singapore, where the Simplified Chinese orthographical reform has been adopted, vertical writing is now very rare. Most publications are now printed in horizontal alignment, like English, and vertical alignment is generally used for artistic or aesthetic purposes, or when space constraints demand it, for example on the spines of books or when labeling maps or diagrams.Horizontal writing is written left to right in the vast majority of cases, with a few exceptions such as bilingual dictionaries of Chinese and right-to-left scripts like Arabic, in which case Chinese may follow the right-to-left alignment.
Japanese and Traditional Chinese
Both horizontal and vertical writing are used in Japan, as well as in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan where the Traditional Chinese orthography is used.Vertical writing is commonly used for novels, newspapers, comics, and many other forms of writing. Because it goes downwards, vertical writing is invariably used on the spines of books. Some newspapers combine the two forms, using the vertical format for most articles but including some written horizontally.
Horizontal writing is easier for some purposes; academic texts are usually written this way since they often include words and phrases in other languages, which are more easily incorporated horizontally. Scientific and mathematical texts are nearly always written horizontally, since in vertical writing equations must be turned sideways, making them more difficult to read.
Similarly, English language textbooks, which contain many English words, are usually printed in horizontal writing. This is not a fixed rule, however, and it is also common to see English words printed sideways in vertical writing texts.
Computer text is usually presented in horizontal format; see Japanese language and computers.
Business cards in Japan (meishi) are often printed vertically in Japanese on one side, and horizontally in English on the other. Postcards and handwritten letters may be arranged horizontally or vertically, but the more formal the letter the more likely it is to be written vertically. Envelope addresses are usually vertical, with the address on the left and the name of the person in the exact centre of the envelope. See also Japanese etiquette.
Cartoons
Japanese cartoons, also known as manga, tend to use vertical direction for text. Manga frames tend to flow in right-to-left horizontal direction. Frames in yonkoma manga tend to flow in a vertical direction. Page ordering is the same as books that use vertical direction: from right to left. Frames that are chronologically before or after each other use less spacing in between as a visual cue.
Some publishers that translate manga may choose to keep the original page order (a notable example is Shonen Jump magazine), while other publishers may reverse the page flow with use of mirrored pages.
Mongolian
Traditional Mongolian Script and its offshoots including Manchu script are rendered vertically. Characters within Mongolian text that can only be rendered horizontally are rotated by 90 degrees.References
- Nihongo Daihakubutsukan (日本語大博物館), author: Jun'ichirō Kida (紀田順一郎), publisher: Just System (ジャストシステム, Jasuto Shisutem) ISBN 4883090469 (in Japanese), chapter 9, deals with the change from tategaki to yokogaki in modern Japanese.
External links
"Horizontal and vertical writing in East Asian scripts"