MA370 protest signs in Chinese -- left to right?

Sun Mar 30 02:14:23 UTC 2014

Chinese normally reads left to right like that on the mainland.  It's been
the norm since the 50s, and Taiwan started writing official documents that
way about ten years ago.

Top to bottom is also common in traditional character signage (as opposed
to in simplified characters), but people only write right to left if it's a
single-line traditional sign (for example, the name of a temple or pagoda,
written above the outside door).  If there is more than one line, then it
would traditionally be top to bottom.

On Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 9:38 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      MA370 protest signs in Chinese -- left to right?
>
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>
> <html>
> <body>
> This evening on CNN I saw protest signs in English and Chinese being held
> up by relatives of passengers on MA370.  The English sentences have
> exclamation points.  The ones in Chinese characters also have
> exclamation points, at the right end.<br><br>
> One such image is at
> <a href="http://tinyurl.com/nmdqjlw" eudora="autourl"><font size=3><b>
> http://tinyurl.com/nmdqjlw</a> or<br>
> </b></font>
> <a href="
> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-24/malaysia-says-flight-370-ended-in-ocean-as-hunt-goes-on.html"
> eudora="autourl">
>
> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-24/malaysia-says-flight-370-ended-in-ocean-as-hunt-goes-on.html
> </a>
> <br><br>
> Is left-to-right presentation becoming more common?<br><br>
> Joel<br><br>
> </body>
> </html>
>
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--
Randy Alexander
Manchu studies: http://www.sinoglot.com/manchu
Language in China (group blog): http://www.sinoglot.com/blog
Music: http://www.metafilter.com/activity/56219/posts/music/

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