I mean, you can write in Chinese, Japanese or Korean vertically and the text remains legible they’re logographic (except Korean) so for both Chinese or Japanese: the nature of the writing system allows it for that level of flexibility when it comes to displaying text either vertically (R-L) or horizontally (L-R) while languages that use the Latin alphabet remain rigid on horizontal writing orientation only.

As in, you can display a Chinese or Japanese sentence top to bottom in vertical orientation but doing that with Latin-based languages (like English or French) makes it look crap. Today that form of writing still exists, Japanese has it in Manga where the text is formatted vertically and in Chinese it’s used for signage or pillars (Korean can be displayed in that format but it remains rare today).

  • mannycalavera@feddit.uk
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    1 month ago

    but doing that with Latin-based languages (like English or French) makes it look crap

    Bold assumption. Who says it looks crap? Is this your “opinion” or based on a study you can share?

    • beegnyoshi@lemmy.zip
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      1 month ago

      Why would you need to link a study to be able to say that something looks like crap?