Vertical or horizontal? Reading directions in Japanese
Yasuko Obana · Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies · 1997
The Japanese language was traditionally written vertically. Recently, journals, textbooks and academic reference works have appeared with the script written horizontally. One reason for this may be that quotations of foreign names and articles (written in European languages) and mathematical equations often appear in technical texts, and it is therefore more convenient to have the main text of this kind of work written horizontally.