Left-to-Right or Right-to-Left? An Inquiry into the Text Direction of Chinese Characters

• Author(s) / Creator(s)

  • Chor, Louis

• Discussions on the unique vertical text direction of written or printed Chinese are scarce. A common view on why Chinese characters were invented to move vertically across the writing medium maintains that vertical text was the result of using bamboo strips for writing Chinese characters in the distant past. This essay debunks this common view with my basic argument that bamboo strips are human artifacts made for a purpose. The purpose is to have characters moving from top to bottom with columns of characters progressing from right to left, a heaven-and-earth/east-to-west configuration, regardless of the writing medium. The concept of text as presentation is also brought forth. Vertical text is now still widely used and sustained in Japan, but rare in China and Korea, and becoming less popular in Taiwan and Hong Kong.

• Date created

  2012-07-01

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Chinese characters
  • Text direction
  • Text as presentation
  • Journal of East Asian Libraries
  • Chinese writing
  • Vertical text direction
  • Chinese text direction
  • Writing direction

• Type of Item

  Article (Published)

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3NG4GV3J

• License

  Attribution 4.0 International