Yokogaki and tategaki

Yokogaki (???, "horizontal writing", also known as yokogumi, ???) and tategaki (???, "vertical writing", also known as tategumi, ???) are two forms of Japanese writing.

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Traditionally, Japanese was 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 preceeding one. This format is the same as that of Chinese, and the stroke order and stroke direction of Chinese and Japanese characters is designed to facilitate writing in this manner.

Related Topics:
Japanese - Chinese - Stroke order - Chinese - Japanese characters

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In modern times, Japanese is also written horizontally from left to right with successive rows going from top to bottom, in a manner identical to that of European languages such as English. This style is known as yokogaki. It 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 (????????, Sh?chins?zu Dokuwa Jisho, "pocket illustrated German to Japanese dictionary") published in 1885 (Meiji 18).

Related Topics:
European language - Meiji era

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