page_title: Horizontal and vertical writing in East Asian scripts
hierarchical_section_title: Horizontal and vertical writing in East Asian scripts
caption_attribution_description: A detail of The Cold Food Observance, specifically the 11th to 13th line on the handscroll, depicting calligraphy in semi-cursive script
context_page_description: Many East Asian scripts can be written horizontally or vertically. Chinese, Japanese and Korean scripts can be oriented along either axis, as they consist mainly of disconnected logographic or syllabic units, each occupying a square block of space, thus allowing for flexibility for which direction texts can be written, be it horizontally from left-to-right, horizontally from right-to-left, vertically from top-to-bottom, and even vertically from bottom-to-top.
  Horizontal writing is known in Chinese as hengpai, in Japanese as yokogaki, and in Korean as garosseugi or hoengseo.
  Vertical writing is known respectively as zongpai, tategaki, or serosseugi or jongseo.
  Traditionally, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean are written vertically in columns going from top to bottom and ordered from right to left, with each new column starting to the left of the preceding one. The stroke order and stroke direction of Chinese characters, Japanese kana, and Korean Hangul all facilitate writing in this manner. In addition, writing in vertical columns from right to left facilitated writing with a brush in the right hand while continually unrolling the sheet of paper or scroll with the left.
context_section_description: Many East Asian scripts can be written horizontally or vertically. Chinese, Japanese and Korean scripts can be oriented along either axis, as they consist mainly of disconnected logographic or syllabic units, each occupying a square block of space, thus allowing for flexibility for which direction texts can be written, be it horizontally from left-to-right, horizontally from right-to-left, vertically from top-to-bottom, and even vertically from bottom-to-top. 
  Horizontal writing is known in Chinese as hengpai (simplified Chinese: 横排; traditional Chinese: 橫排; pinyin: héngpái; lit.: 'horizontal alignment'), in Japanese as yokogaki (横書き, "horizontal writing", also yokogumi, 横組み), and in Korean as garosseugi (가로쓰기) or hoengseo (횡서; 橫書).
  Vertical writing is known respectively as zongpai (simplified Chinese: 纵排; traditional Chinese: 縱排; pinyin: zōngpái; lit.: 'vertical alignment'), tategaki (縦書き, "vertical writing", also tategumi, 縦組み), or serosseugi (세로쓰기) or jongseo (종서; 縱書).
  Traditionally, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean are written vertically in columns going from top to bottom and ordered from right to left, with each new column starting to the left of the preceding one. The stroke order and stroke direction of Chinese characters (hanzi in Chinese, kanji in Japanese, hanja in Korean), Japanese kana, and Korean Hangul all facilitate writing in this manner. In addition, writing in vertical columns from right to left facilitated writing with a brush in the right hand while continually unrolling the sheet of paper or scroll with the left.  Since the nineteenth century, it has become increasingly common for these languages to be written horizontally, from left to right, with successive rows going from top to bottom, under the influence of European languages such as English, although vertical writing is still frequently used in Hong Kong, Japan, Macau, Korea, and Taiwan.
caption: An excerpt from The Cold Food Observance (寒食帖) by Song Dynasty scholar Su Shi (蘇軾). The calligraphy is read in columns from top to bottom, from right to left.
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