Japanese texts were historically written to be read from the top of the page down, and right to left. This was originally due to China’s influence on Japan’s writing system, since Japan imported Chinese characters or ‘kanji’ in Japanese in the 5th century via routes through Korea. Since then, recently it isn’t uncommon to see books written in the horizontal left-to-right style used in the west, although it is still most common to see the vertical right-to-left format.
why is japanese written in these two different directions?
well actually there was a time before world war 2 when japan wrote horizontal text that read from right to left, so technically there were three different formats. With that said, I will focus on the two main formats that you can see in modern Japanese, which are tategaki and yokogaki. As I had written earlier, there are two main ways Japanese texts are formatted today. traditional Japanese texts were written in a vertical format known in Japanese as tategaki (縦書き), which you can see in the image below.
You are reading: Why are japanese books right to left
Tategaki is written starting from the top-right corner of the page, and is meant to be read down and from right-to-left across the page.
The other main style in which Japanese writing is formatted is a horizontal or yokogaki (横書き) style, which is how texts are formatted in the West with words written from the top left corner of a page and read down. right across the page.
This is exactly how you would read in English. so why would people write in two different formats? Wouldn’t that complicate things for no reason? hmm… yes and no…
Let me explain.
then why write in tategaki?
despite historical precedent, there is a kind of subconscious air of authenticity that tategaki formatting can give your writing. This is because most “official” or “reliable” fonts are usually written in the vertical right-to-left style, as this is the most traditional writing style in Japan. You can expect handwritten letters, newspapers, and many notices to be written in this style, and it’s the way these traditional documents have been written for centuries. this is kind of a “chicken or the egg” situation. writing in tategaki makes whatever you’re writing look more “official” or “traditional”, because more “official” or “traditional” documents are usually written in tategaki, so people choose to format in tategaki because… you get the point point.
Interestingly, most novels and academic texts are still written in this vertical style, although I have noticed that many books on business, philosophy, or psychology are written in the horizontal style (known in Japanese as yokogaki 横書き). for some reason, as I had written above, there seems to be some kind of subconscious correlation between the subject material and the format of the books. biographies and textbooks are almost always written in a horizontal style, while mysteries and fiction are written in a vertical style. As I browse through the books in my apartment and reminisce about my experience reading hundreds of books in Japan (after all, I went to college here), I can’t seem to find any concrete reasoning why some texts choose to use certain formats. maybe it’s really just the author’s personal preference, or maybe a bias that’s being imposed on the print industry as a whole through standard publisher practices.
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Naturally, as print media and other forms of communication have become common in the modern technical landscape, Japan has had to adapt to the standard format of the internet and other social devices, and the horizontal style has become increasingly more common, especially in the digital space. Japanese blog posts, websites, and articles are always written in landscape style. At least, I have never seen a publication or article on the internet that was written to be read from right to left, unless it is an image of a physical medium.
these formats affect the tint of the text
Like most things in Japanese society, people adapt to the needs of the text. you are sending a ‘nengajo’
(年賀状) or a New Year’s letter to Grandma? it would be a bit inappropriate, and perhaps a bit in bad taste, to write in landscape style. Are you writing a card for your girlfriend on her birthday? well, maybe writing in portrait style would be a bit “stale” or “dry”. the horizontal format makes readers feel one way and the vertical format another. In this way, as with the variability and sheer number of characters in Japanese, having a lot more information to work with means you have a lot more options to work with when trying to convey a certain sentiment to your reader. Now, I will say that it is quite strange to mix these two formats in the same body of work, so you will have to commit to a style from the beginning… right?
Okay, I lied. there are times when writers will choose to include both formats on a single page.
newspapers are often written in both styles…on the same page
madness. it’s crazy! well, actually, after 7 years of living in japan, i don’t even notice it anymore. you can see what i mean below. the areas I have circled in blue are written in yokogaki and should be read in English (from left to right).
As you can see, Japanese newspapers incorporate both styles seamlessly and, dare I say… illogically? Essentially, newspapers mix both styles for the sake of formatting and to save space, but you’ll also usually see eye-catching material and article headlines written in yokogaki (horizontally). however, this is not always the case. the top article I attached uses tategaki to display the main headline and yokogaki in the center to include a key point. It really depends on the medium. You might think this will be hard to read when the text flows in all different directions like this, but the natural spacing between the Japanese characters is enough to immediately warn you which direction each piece of content should be read. in.
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a
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and
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… read this? It may have taken you a second, but I’m sure you can. I guess I may be one of the first websites to successfully incorporate English tategaki into my writing. wow! look at me…
I know how to ask the question that anyone who has ever mumbled the words “japan” in their life has on their mind. “And what about the anime!?!” Well, I’m not going to talk about anime. I’m sorry… but I’ll write a little about manga.
manga is written from right to left… right?
yes! most of the time while i wouldn’t call myself a manga enthusiast, i’ve probably read about…let’s say 10 different series, and as far as i can remember, every manga i’ve read has been written exclusively from the tategaki from right to left and up. -style down. That said, manga is stylistically much more flexible than other media. take this scene from death note as an example.
you can see on this page that while the text is written in tategaki, this scene shows what light is writing in the death note. because he is writing his own personal notes, notebooks are usually written using yokogaki, so the background is shown in the appropriate yokogaki. The point is that even though the main texts are often written in tategaki, the scene or chapter of each manga can often break these rules in some pretty interesting ways. furthermore, there are many interesting formatting tricks that manga artists or ‘mangaka’ (漫画家) use to make the most of every inch, every millimeter of the page. Generally speaking, these choices to blend the two formats boil down to a decision to stylize, make the most of the given space, or invoke a certain sentiment in the reader. as i was explaining in a separate article i wrote about why japan uses 3 alphabets (you can read that article here if you’re interested), each writing format gives the writer a completely different form of expression to work with, and gives to your text a certain nuance. While all of this can be intimidating at first to figure out, like most things related to Japanese, the more time you spend practicing it, the easier it will be for you to pick up its subtle nuances unconsciously.