35 replies
2d
Wow! Never thought about it like this before:
Because Japanese text is read from right to left, the earliest viewers of The Great Wave would have likely read the print that way too, first encountering the boaters and then meeting the great claw of water about to swallow them. So instead of riding along with the gargantuan wave as you might in a left-to-right reading, they would face right into the massive wall of ocean.
Reversed image from the article to demonstrate: https://artic-web.imgix.net/5c05c38c-1c80-446f-a3db-4b95b42e...
Historical Japanese text, written vertically, is read top to bottom and right to left (like in those prints). On the other hand, more modern text (including what’s more common now) is read left to right when written horizontally. There are some more variations on directionality.
Nevertheless, the picture does look and convey a different impression when flipped.
This is true of documents, text messages, social media etc., but most books, magazines and other printed matter are still done vertically and R-L.
Wow, I didn't know that! I thought vertical text was a thing of the past. Interesting.
I'm probably lower-intermediate at Japanese, so take this with a grain of salt.
I find that reading vertical text feels better, even though I first learned to read horizontal text. I don't know if this is all in my mind, or it really does have some appeal to it, though.
I’m not native, but have read and spoken Japanese fluently for almost twenty years. I still can’t get used to and hate vertical text.
Maybe it’s because 99% of my Japanese context is business-related or on devices (computer, phone) and I don’t read novels, manga, etc.
Ah, yeah, my main motivation is reading light novels, and I've actually read a few really easy ones. I've also read manga, but it's hard to find any that I like that are also at my level.
I'm not sure how I'd feel if the vast majority of my usage had been horizontal instead.
A typical eye is stronger at up-down motion and weaker at left-right motion. That comes up sometimes when adding rules (guidelines) to tables.
I own a bunch of novels in Japanese, and every single one is vertically-written. Same with all the comic books I own. I think maybe a couple children's manga I had years ago were horizontally-written, but we're talking something I haven't laid eyes on in decades, so I might be mis-remembering.
Mangas often mix and match, depenfong on what best fits the image.
If it's not done a lot on the web, I blame CSS. With horizontal text you scroll the page from top to bottom, with vertical text from right to left. Most HTML/CSS seems to be optimized for the former. E.g. vertical percentage margins don't work like horizontal ones, and CSS3 columns have similar issues.
If you want to try a horizontal text layout novel for some reason, "私小説―from left to right" is one. It's a deliberate choice because it's a semi autobiographical novel about the author's life as a bilingual Japanese and English speaker growing up in the US. The text is peppered with English words and fragments of dialogue to try to convey some of the bilingual experience.
That is the only one I've encountered though.
Novels are often written vertically as well, so it's fairly common still.
Only because Western-centric systems don't handle non-LTR text properly.
https://atadistance.net/2019/10/20/japanese-text-layout-for-...
I have a Kobo reader which supports both ePub 2 and ePub 3, and IIRC you need ePub 3 in order to get proper RTL/top-to-bottom text and Japanese typesetting, as well as proper comics support (if you buy an ePub 3 manga, it'll properly flip the page turn direction and the progress bar; a CBZ or other format won't). But most other readers I run into don't understand ePub 3 properly.
It’s rare in modern times, but sometimes you may encounter a sign board written horizontally right-to-left, as in this sign above the front entrance to the Nippon Budōkan:
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nippon_Budokan_-_2...
How does one know whether to read left to right or right to left? Or is it clear from the text?
It's usually clear from context.
That sign in particular says "Martial Arts Hall" ("budokan" / 武道館) from right to left.
Imagine an alternate universe where English could also be read left-to-right or right-to-left. If you were to see a sign saying "Hall Arts Martial", you'd immediately know the right way to read it.
Cheap Trick was live at a martial arts hall?
txetnoC
I wonder the logic and even history of why right to left came into being. Is there any benefit in choosing a directionality of one vs another.
One thing that comes to my mind- book binding is done on the left edge of the book/news paper. So if folds are created you would go read left paper first and then to the right. Now if you are parsing left to right at higher level- At lower level wouldn’t it become consistency of UX to offer left to right reading?
Boustrophedon (alternating left-to-right and right-to-left) was used sometimes in ancient Greek, so that your eyes didn't have to jump to the beginning of the next line.
It’s kinda of arbitrary. For ink:graphite writing top to bottom and right to left has the advantage of not smudging for right handers. For more durable media (carving/etching/chiseling) I think it is more arbitrary.
Even manga translated into English is right-to-left with the first page (in English) scolding you for opening the book at the back, and telling you how to follow the text.
Also fans of some manga (especially One Piece?) will talk about how the comics will make use of this sense of right to left, with subtle timing, action, or causality often being from right to left (if Star Wars was a manga, Han would shoot from the right of the frame).
Horizontal right-to-left was common historically
I feel really dumb, but I have never even noticed the boats. In the reversed I see them very clearly, but in the original the wave is completely dominating the view (now I see the boats of course, but my focus is completely on the wave by default).
Even dumber, I never noticed Mt. Fuji was in the pic, focus was truly on the wave.
In some prints Fuji is coloured to look like a small wave (my personal preference) but in later prints is coloured differently to stand out.
Worth noting the color of the boats varies from white to yellow to dark brown in the various prints, so sometimes they appear far more obviously than others.
Me too! I'd only ever noticed the waves
This happened to me too! I'm not sure if it's the left-to-right thing though, that sounds a bit unlikely to me. Specifically that it's tied to the language we use. (For the record I probably default to reading left-to-right, though I also read and write in Hebrew which is RTL.)
I am in the same ..err ...boat.
I am now convinced there is a strong element of left-to-right versus right-to-left in the way we process images.
Fascinating!
I think that's just the natural direction to draw a wave as a right handed person.
Interesting. It's a woodblock print, so I think it would have been created backwards from the final product?
The description of the Japanese woodblock printing process in https://education.asianart.org/resources/the-ukiyo-e-woodblo... says that the artist's initial drawing is pasted face down on the woodblock, which is then carved to match it. So (unless I've got myself confused) the final print will be the same way round as the artist's drawing. This also means that text in the image (like the title and the artist's signature) come out the right way round.
I don't feel any difference in both the images.
My eyes first see the large wave in both photos.