A Historical Study of the Direction of Writing in Japanese.

1. 日语有独特的书写系统，既可以横着写，也可以竖着写。直到江户晚期或明治初期（1860-1870年左右），横写才被引入。在那之前，只有竖字。由于与西方世界的接触，需要水平书写或从左到右的方向，而不是以前唯一使用的从右到左的方向。除了水平书写，还有旋转90度的垂直书写或从左向右的书写。然而，这些很快就被横排字体所取代。几乎同时出现了两种不同的横文字。一种是从左到右书写，另一种是从右到左书写。它们最初是根据用户而使用，然后是类型。然而，由于两种书写的功能是相同的，到1950年左右，从左到右的书写被统一使用，这在与阿拉伯数字同时使用的情况下更有效率。横着写最适合于某种目的，而竖着写更适合于另一种目的。然而，对于某些目的，使用两种书写方式都是完全可以接受的。尽管如此，人们还是使用了垂直书写。然而，竖字的使用正逐渐被横字所取代。在不久的将来，日语的书写方向有望从目前的纵（无标记）横（有标记）书写转变为横（无标记）纵（有标记）书写。

1. Japanese has a unique writing system, which allows you to write horizontally as well as vertically. It was not until late Edo Period or Early Meiji Period (around 1860-1870) that the horizontal writing was introduced. Before then there was only the vertical writing. Because of the contacts with western world, there was a need for the horizontal writing or the left-to-right direction as opposed to the right-to-left, which had been the only direction to be used before. Besides the horizontal writing, there was the vertical writing rotated 90 degrees or the one whose direction goes from left to right. However, these were soon replaced with the horizontal writing.2. There appeared two different kinds of horizontal writings almost at the same time. One was the writing from left to right and the other was from right to left. These were used at first according to users, then to genre. However, since the function of the both writings is the same, by about 1950 the writing from left to right became unifonnly to be used, which was more efficient in tenns of the simultaneous use with Arabic numbers.3. Horizontal writings are most suitable for a certain purpose, while vertical writings are better for another, For some purposes, however, it is quite acceptable to use either of the writings. In spite of this, vertical writings have been used. The use of vertical writing, however, is being gradually replaced with that of horizontal writings. In the near future, the direction of writing in Japanese will be expected to change from the present vertical (unmarked) and horizontal (marked) writing to horizontal (unmarked) and vertical (marked) writing system.