This article contains Chinese text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Chinese characters.

An excerpt from Cold Food Observance (寒食帖) by Song Dynasty scholar Su Shi (蘇軾). The calligraphy is read in columns from right to left.

Many East Asian scripts can be written horizontally or vertically. The Chinese, Japanese and Korean scripts can be oriented in either direction, while the traditional Mongolian script and its offshoots (like Manchu) are written vertically. Image File history File links Zhongwen. ... Japanese name Kanji: Kana: Korean name Hangul: Hanja: Vietnamese name Quoc Ngu: Hantu: A Chinese character (Simplified Chinese: ; Traditional Chinese: ; Pinyin: ) is a logogram used in writing Chinese, Japanese, sometimes Korean, and formerly Vietnamese. ... Image:Su shi-calligraphy. ... Image:Su shi-calligraphy. ... Northern Song in 1111 AD Capital Kaifeng (960–1127) Linan (1127–1276) Language(s) Chinese Religion Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism Government Monarchy Emperor  - 960-976 Emperor Taizu  - 1126–1127 Emperor Qinzong  - 1127–1162 Emperor Gaozong  - 1278–1279 Emperor Bing History  - Zhao Kuangyin taking over the throne of the Later Zhou... Su Shi (蘇軾) (1037-1101) was a writer, poet, artist, calligrapher and statesman of the Song Dynasty, one of the major poets of the Song era. ... The Manchu language is a Tungusic language spoken by Manchus in Manchuria; it is the language of the Manchu, though now most Manchus speak Mandarin Chinese and there are fewer than 70 native speakers of Manchu out of a total of nearly 10 million ethnic Manchus. ...

In Chinese, horizontal writing is known as hengpai (Chinese: 橫排; Pinyin: héngpái; literally "horizontal alignment"), while vertical writing is known as shupai (Traditional Chinese: 竪排; Simplified Chinese: 竖排; Pinyin: shùpái; literally "vertical alignment"). 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). In Korean, horizontal writing is called garosseugi (가로쓰기) or hoengseo (횡서; 橫書), and vertical writing is called serosseugi (세로쓰기) or jongseo (종서; 縱書). Pinyin, more formally called Hanyu Pinyin (Simplified Chinese: ; Traditional Chinese: ; Pinyin: ), is the most common variant of Standard Mandarin romanization system in use. ... Traditional Chinese characters refers to one of two standard sets of printed Chinese characters. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Pinyin, more formally called Hanyu Pinyin (Simplified Chinese: ; Traditional Chinese: ; Pinyin: ), is the most common variant of Standard Mandarin romanization system in use. ...

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), Japanese kana, and Korean Hangul are all designed to facilitate writing in this manner. In addition, writing in vertical columns from right to left facilitated writing with a brush in the right hand while continually unrolling the sheet of paper or scroll with the left. 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. Outline of the character æ°¸, showing stroke order. ... Japanese writing Kanji Kana Hiragana Katakana Hentaigana Manyōgana Uses Furigana Okurigana Rōmaji   ) are the Chinese characters that are used in the modern Japanese logographic writing system along with hiragana (平仮名), katakana (片仮名), and the Arabic numerals. ... Hanja is the Korean name for Chinese characters. ... Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Manyogana 万葉仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Rōmaji ローマ字 For other meanings of Kana, see Kana (disambiguation). ... Most of the many indigenous languages of Europe belong to the Indo-European language family. ...

Differences between horizontal and vertical writing

Chinese characters, Japanese kana, and Korean hangul 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. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Also known as Cursive Calligraphy. ... The orthography of a language specifies the correct way of writing in that language. ... Numerals sans-serif Arabic numerals, known formally as Hindu-Arabic numerals, and also as Indian numerals, Hindu numerals, Western Arabic numerals, European numerals, or Western numerals, are the most common symbolic representation of numbers around the world. ... Chinese numerals are characters for writing numbers in Chinese. ...

In these scripts, 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. The term punctuation has two different linguistic meanings: in general, the act and the effect of punctuating, i. ... Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Rōmaji ローマ字 Category The chōon ) or bōsen ) mark is a Japanese symbol which is used to indicate a long vowel, especially in katakana writing. ...

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: Ruby characters, also called ruby, rubi or furigana, are sometimes used in the typography of ideographic languages, especially Japanese and Chinese. ... Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Rōmaji ローマ字 Category Furigana (Japanese: ふりがな), are a Japanese reading aid. ... Zhuyin fuhao (Traditional Chinese: ; Simplified Chinese: ; Hanyu Pinyin: ; Tongyong Pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Chu-yin fu-hao), or Symbols for Annotating Sounds, often abbreviated as Zhuyin, or known as Bopomofo (ㄅㄆㄇㄈ) after the first four letters of this Chinese phonemic alphabet (bo po mo fo), is the national phonetic system of the... Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Rōmaji ローマ字 Category Furigana (Japanese: ふりがな), are a Japanese reading aid. ...

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

The word kasutera (カステラ) written from right to left on the right-hand side of a festival stall in Hakone, Japan.

Imperial throne inside the Forbidden City in Beijing. The plaque at the top, "正大光明", uses right-to-left horizontal writing, while the plaques on the sides use vertical 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 or the signboard of a shop. This horizontal writing is in fact a special case of vertical writing in which each column contains just one character. Download high resolution version (850x638, 232 KB) Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Download high resolution version (850x638, 232 KB) Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Vendor sells kasutera at a festival in Hakone Kasutera (カステラ) is a sponge cake made of sugar, flour, eggs, and starch syrup. ... Mt. ... Inside the Forbidden City. ... Inside the Forbidden City. ... For other uses, see Forbidden City (disambiguation). ... Beijing (Chinese: 北京; pinyin: BÄ›ijÄ«ng; Wade-Giles: Peiching or Pei-ching; IPA: ; literally Northern capital;  ), a metropolis in northern China, is the capital of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). ...

Therefore, before the end of WW2 in Japan, those signs were read right to left.

Today, the left-to-right direction is 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.

However, right-to-left horizontal writing is still seen in these scripts, 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.

History

Chinese

An unfolded Chinese bamboo book featuring text written vertically along the strips of bamboo.

The first printed Chinese text in horizontal alignment was Robert Morrison's "Dictionary of the Chinese language", published in 1815-1823 in Macau. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (2524x1920, 2176 KB) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Bamboo Bookbinding Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Books Wikipedia talk:WikiProject China Metadata This file contains additional information, probably added... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (2524x1920, 2176 KB) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Bamboo Bookbinding Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Books Wikipedia talk:WikiProject China Metadata This file contains additional information, probably added... Diversity Around 91 genera and 1,000 species Subtribes Arthrostylidiinae Arundinariinae Bambusinae Chusqueinae Guaduinae Melocanninae Nastinae Racemobambodinae Shibataeinae See the full Taxonomy of the Bambuseae. ... For other uses, see Book (disambiguation). ...

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 is marked with Western punctuation. This is to make the insertion of mathematical, physical and chemical formulae convenient, not for the sake of novelty-hunting. 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. Combatants Nationalist Party of China Communist Party of China Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Mao Zedong Strength 4,300,000 (July 1946) 3,650,000 (June 1948) 1,490,000 (June 1949) 1,200,000 (July 1946) 2,800,000 (June 1948) 4,000,000 (June 1949) The Chinese Civil War... 1949 (MCMXLIX) was a common year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1949 calendar). ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... ... Languages various Religions Predominantly Taoism, Mahayana Buddhism, traditional Chinese religions, and atheism. ... For the band, see 1990s (band). ... The 2000s are the current decade, spanning from 2000 to 2009. ...

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). History of Japan Paleolithic Jomon Yayoi Yamato period ---Kofun period ---Asuka period Nara period Heian period Kamakura period Muromachi period Azuchi-Momoyama period ---Nanban period Edo period Meiji period Taisho period Showa period ---Japanese expansionism ---Occupied Japan ---Post-Occupation Japan Heisei The Meiji period (Japanese: Meiji Jidai 明治&#26178...

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-row right-to-left writing. This form was never widely used, and has not survived. Arabic ( or just ) is the largest living member of the Semitic language family in terms of speakers. ...

Usage

The slogans on Tiananmen ("Long live the People's Republic of China" and "Long live the unity of the people of the world") are written in Simplified Chinese from left to right.

ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (3601x2415, 2920 KB) Summary The Forbidden City Imperial Palace in Beijing, China Licensing File links The following pages link to this file: Tiananmen User:Calton/Pictures ... ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (3601x2415, 2920 KB) Summary The Forbidden City Imperial Palace in Beijing, China Licensing File links The following pages link to this file: Tiananmen User:Calton/Pictures ... The Tiananmen The Gate of Heavenly Peace is the front entrance into the Imperial City A close-up of the rooftop The Tiananmen or Tiananmen (Simplified Chinese: ; Traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: Tiānānmén; Manchu: Abkai elhe obure duka), is the main entrance to the Imperial City, the...

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. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...

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

An anti-smoking campaign advertisement on a Tokyo train, combining horizontal writing in Japanese and English.

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. Traditional Chinese is also used in mainland China in a few limited contexts, such as some books on ancient literature; in those contexts, both horizontal and vertical writing are used as well. Image File history File links Antismoking_ad,_Tokyo. ... Image File history File links Antismoking_ad,_Tokyo. ... Traditional Chinese (Traditional Chinese: 正體字/繁體字, Simplified Chinese: 正体字/繁体字) refers to one of two standard sets of printed Chinese characters. ...

Example of a newspaper article written vertically in Traditional Chinese with a left-to-right horizontal headline. Note the rotation of the Latin letters and Arabic numerals when written with the vertical text.

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, especially for headlines. Musical notation for some Japanese instruments such as the shakuhachi is written vertically. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. ... Numerals sans-serif Arabic numerals, known formally as Hindu-Arabic numerals, and also as Indian numerals, Hindu numerals, Western Arabic numerals, European numerals, or Western numerals, are the most common symbolic representation of numbers around the world. ... maNga is a popular Turkish nu metal/rapcore band. ... A headline is text at the top of a newspaper article, indicating the nature of the article below it. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... A shakuhachi flute, blowing edge up. ...

Horizontal writing is easier for some purposes; academic texts are sometimes 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. Part of a scientific laboratory at the University of Cologne. ... Euclid, Greek mathematician, 3rd century BC, as imagined by by Raphael in this detail from The School of Athens. ...

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. In relation to the Japanese language and computers many adaptation issues arise, some unique to Japanese and others common to languages which have a very large number of characters. ...

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. Meishi (名刺, pronounced may-she) is the Japanese equivalent of a business card. ... Etiquette is the code that governs the expectations of social behavior, the conventional norm (main article: Etiquette). ...

Calligraphy

In East Asian calligraphy, vertical writing remains the dominant direction. This is true even for calligraphy done in Simplified Chinese. The art of calligraphy is widely practiced and revered in the East Asian civilizations that use Chinese characters. ...

Cartoons

Combined tategaki and yokogaki in the manga Doraemon. Red numbers on arrows indicate sequence of reading lines. Pink numbers indicate sequence of panels of comic.

Japanese comics, 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. Image File history File links Doraemon-tate-yoko. ... Image File history File links Doraemon-tate-yoko. ... Original run April 2, 1979 – Present No. ... maNga is a popular Turkish nu metal/rapcore band. ... Yonkoma manga (4コマ漫画, four cell manga), or 4-koma for short, is a Japanese comic strip format which consists of gags within four cells. ...

In some cases, horizontal writing may be used to indicate that a character is actually speaking in English instead of Japanese.

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. Weekly Shonen Jump, issue 40 (Japanese version) Weekly Shonen Jump (週刊少年ジャンプ Shūkan Shōnen Janpu), with a circulation of over 3 million, is one of the longest-running, weekly manga compilations in Japan. ...

Korean

Example of vertical writing (column are left-to-right) written in Korean. This image is also using western punctuation marks like horizontal writing.

Hunmin Jeongeum Haerye uses right-to-left vertical writing. It use hanja and small hangul for ruby on right below.

In modern Korea, vertical writing is rare likes Simplified Chinese does. Modern Korean is usually written in left-to-right horizontal writing. Vertical writing is usually used when the writing space is long vertically and narrow horizontally, for example book titles name which is written on side are usually written vertically. or When a foreign language film is subtitled into Korean, the subtitles are sometimes written vertically at the right side of the screen. Image File history File links Size of this preview: 135 × 596 pixelsFull resolution (307 × 1356 pixel, file size: 704 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) This work is copyrighted and unlicensed. ... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 135 × 596 pixelsFull resolution (307 × 1356 pixel, file size: 704 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) This work is copyrighted and unlicensed. ... Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Hunmin Jeongeum Haerye (lit. ... Hanja is the Korean name for Chinese characters. ... Jamo redirects here. ... This article or section uses Ruby annotation. ... This article is about the Korean peninsula and civilization. ...

Traditionally, Korean people also used vertical writing and the column are read from right to left. But about after 1980s, popular writing way is moved to horizontal writing system, and horizontal writing is usually used as left to right.

In 1980s all major Korean newspaper had written vertical writing, but in 1988, The Hankyoreh newspaper first introduce horizontal writing to newspaper. After 1990 all major newspaper change writing style horizontally, and today there are no major newspaper written in vertical writing. Year 1988 (MCMLXXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Friday (link displays 1988 Gregorian calendar). ... The Hankyoreh (hangul:한겨레) is a daily newspaper in South Korea. ...

In Standard language (표준어; 標準語) of South Korea, punctuation marks are used differently in horizontal and vertical writing. The punctuation marks like Western is used in horizontal writing, and the one like Japanese is used in vertical writing. However, vertical writing using Western punctuation mark is sometimes used today.

Mongolian

Mongolian text with Arabic numerals, Latin alphabet and Chinese characters.

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. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ...

The columns are read from left to right.

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 4-88309-046-9 (in Japanese), chapter 9, deals with the change from tategaki to yokogaki in modern Japanese.

See also

• East Asian calligraphy
• Stroke order
• Bi-directional text

The art of calligraphy is widely practiced and revered in the East Asian civilizations that use Chinese characters. ... Outline of the character æ°¸, showing stroke order. ... Some writing systems of the world, such as Arabic and Hebrew, are written in a form known as right-to-left (RTL), in which writing begins at the right-hand side of a page and concludes at the left-hand side. ...

External links

• Unicode Technical Note #22 Robust Vertical Text Layout