RE: Vertical scripts (was: Tategaki (was: Re: Updated...))

From: Marco Cimarosti (marco.cimarosti@essetre.it)
Date: Wed Jan 02 2002 - 05:27:02 EST


Doug Ewell wrote:
> TUS 3.0 states (p. 24): "In contrast to the bidirectional
> case, the choice to lay out text either vertically or
> horizontally is treated as a formatting style.
> [...] why should overrides of default horizontal
> directionality be a plain-text issue but overrides of
> default vertical directionality be a higher-level
> "formatting style" issue?

Because all vertical scripts (CJK and Mongolian) can also be written
horizontally, whereas modern right-to-left script cannot be written
left-to-right.

Also, all horizontal scripts, when embedded in Far East text, may be written
vertically by rotating them 90° degrees (clockwise for LTR scripts,
counterclockwise RTL scripts).

So you can happily define a system-level vertical/horizontal preference, and
use it blindly for plain text in any kind of script.

_ Marco



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