History Horizontal and vertical writing in East Asian scripts

1 history

1.1 chinese
1.2 japanese
1.3 korean

history
chinese

an unfolded chinese bamboo book featuring text written vertically along strips of bamboo.

the first printed chinese text in horizontal alignment robert morrison s dictionary of chinese language , published in 1815–1823 in macau.

the earliest known chinese publication using horizontal alignment magazine science (科學). first issue in january 1915 explained (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 printed goes sideways top left, , marked western punctuation. make insertion of mathematical, physical , chemical formulae convenient, not sake of novelty-hunting. ask our readers excuse us.

in subsequent decades, occurrence of words in western script (predominantly english) became increasingly frequent, , readers began appreciate unwieldiness of rotating paper @ each occurrence vertically set texts. accelerated acceptance of horizontal writing.

text on sides of china post vehicles runs front of car rear, i.e. left right on vehicle s left side, , right left on right side. english text on right side in reverse order. arrangement common on tour buses in china well.

with proliferation of horizontal text, both horizontal , vertical came used concurrently. proponents of horizontal text argued vertical text in right-to-left columns smudged when written, , demanded greater movement eyes when read. vertical text proponents considered horizontal text break established tradition.

after success of communist revolution in 1949, people s republic of china decided use horizontal writing. newspapers in china changed vertical horizontal alignment on january 1, 1956. in publications, text run horizontally although book titles on spines , newspaper headlines remain vertical convenience. inscriptions of signs on state organs still vertical.

in singapore, vertical writing has become rare. in taiwan, hong kong, macau, , among older overseas chinese communities, horizontal writing has been gradually adopted since 1990s. 2000s, newspapers in these areas had switched left-to-right horizontal writing, either entirely or in combination of vertical text horizontal left-to-right headings.

japanese

horizontal text came japanese in meiji era, when japanese began print western language dictionaries. printed dictionaries in mixture of horizontal western , vertical japanese text, meant readers had rotate book ninety degrees read western text. because unwieldy, idea of yokogaki came accepted. 1 of first publications partially use yokogaki german japanese dictionary (袖珍挿図独和辞書, shūchinsōzu dokuwa jisho, pocket illustrated german japanese dictionary ) published in 1885 (meiji 18).

at beginning of change horizontal alignment in meiji era japan, there short-lived form called migi yokogaki (右横書き, literally right horizontal writing ), in contrast hidari yokogaki, (左横書き, literally left horizontal writing ), current standard. resembled right-to-left horizontal writing style of languages such arabic line breaks on left. based on traditional single-row right-to-left writing. form used pre-wwii advertisements , official documents (like banknotes), has not survived outside of old-fashioned signboards.

vertical writing still commonly used in japan in novels, newspapers , magazines including prolific manga comic book genre, while horizontal writing used more in texts, containing english language references.

korean

hunmin jeongeum eonhae uses right-to-left vertical writing. uses hanja , small hangul ruby lettering placed bottom-right.

traditionally, korean writing has been vertical, columns running right left. after 1980s, left-to-right horizontal script became popular.

in 1988, hankyoreh became first korean newspaper use horizontal writing, , after 1990, other major newspapers followed suit. today, no major korean newspapers run text vertically.