jmwei
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Japan's reading style (from top to bottom )must have learned from China. In ancient China when paper was not invented, people used bamboo bar to write, from top to bottom, so maybe that is why people read that way.
Now Chinese are no longer reading that way, Chinese read from left to right....except in some unusuall situations reading ancient files. I suppose Japanese also have changed reading style...
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Because that's just the way the written languages developed, that's why!!
These written languages developed without influence from each other - so until someone walked up and said "Why do you write from top to bottom?" No-one even bothered thinking about it! The same way YOU don't bother thinking about the way YOU write - it's just how it was taught to you, so you KNOW it!
And Japan doesn't JUST write from top to bottom anymore - many things are written from left to right, just like Western languages. You can even select vertical or horizontal on the word processors on computers - even Microsoft Word JP!
; )
Anonymous
Texts on clay tablets from Sumeria and Babylon thousands of years ago were left to right, line by line. We've been stuck in our ways ever since.
How and why hebrew and arabic went the opposite way, I have no idea. Being lefthanded might explain it (seeing where you've been writing versus seeing where you're going), but jews and arabs are no more likely to be lefties than anybody else.
In Asia, I would guess because paper (invented by the Chinese) and wall hangings tended to be vertical and narrow, writing vertically simply made sense. There's also the matter of Asian languages (Chinese, Japanese, and Korean) using the Chinese script. Complex words are written by putting characters together, and writing them vertically is just a matter of location. Western alphabets aren't conducive to writing that way.
Madeleine
There are two ways to read/write in Japanese.
There's the newer "Western" style which is typically used on objects(such as labels), in combination with English or other Roman writing, or on the computer. It is read, like English, in rows going from left to right, top to bottom. Everywhere else (books, etc.) the writing is in columns, which are read the opposite direction (sorta). Like traditional Chinese column writing they are read from top to bottom, right to left.
The way people write is dictated by their language. ; I don't think people ponder much the reason why they write the way they do.
?
even as written horizontally, it is study from left to top. initially, jap is written vertically and skim from accurate to bottom, and from top lines (columns) to left. in recent times, we in many circumstances write sentences peppered with alphabets, and write horizontally and from left to top as in English or different ecu languages. In ealier circumstances, even as alphabets were first imported into Japan, we began to jot down horizontally and write kana and kanji from top to left, yet now we virtually under no circumstances do so, except for circumstances even as written archaically on purpose. Edited: We nevertheless write vertically in certain circumstances, as an celebration, novels or textbooks for jap. And see you later as we write vertically, it is always study from top columns to left. it may look complicated.