A Historical Study of the Direction of Writing in Japanese.

1.日语有一个独特的书写系统，既可以水平书写，也可以垂直书写。直到江户晚期或明治初年(1860-1870年左右)，横书才被引入。在此之前，只有垂直书写。由于与西方世界的接触，需要使用横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。除了横写，还有垂直旋转90度或方向从左向右的书写。然而，这些很快就被水平书写所取代。几乎同时出现了两种不同的横文。一个是从左到右的书写，另一个是从右到左的书写。这些最初是根据用户使用的，然后是流派。然而，由于这两种文字的功能相同，到1950年左右，从左到右的书写变得统一使用，这在与阿拉伯数字同时使用的情况下效率更高。横文最适合某一目的，而竖文则更适合另一目的，但对于某些目的，使用这两种文字中的任何一种都是可以接受的。尽管如此，还是使用了垂直书写。然而，垂直书写的使用正在逐渐被水平书写所取代。在不久的将来，日语的书写方向将从目前的垂直(无标记)和水平(有标记)书写系统转变为水平(无标记)和垂直(有标记)书写系统。

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.