Bi-directional Text - Scripts Using Bi-directional Text

Scripts Using Bi-directional Text

There are very few scripts that can be written in either direction.

Egyptian hieroglyphs can be written bi-directional too, where the signs had a distinct "head" that faced the beginning of a line and "tail" that faced the end.

Chinese characters can also be written in either direction as well as vertically (top to bottom then right to left), especially in signs (such as plaques), but the orientation of the individual characters is never changed. This can often be seen on tour buses in China, where the company name customarily runs from the front of the vehicle to its rear — that is, from right to left on the right side of the bus, and from left to right on the left side of the bus. English texts on the right side of the vehicle are also quite commonly written in reverse order.

• The right side (text runs from right to left)

• The left side (text runs from left to right)

• On the right side of this Hainan Airlines aircraft, the text runs from right to left ( 空 航 南 海 ).

• The left side, however, shows the text running from left to right ( 海 南 航 空 ).

• A photo that shows text on both sides of a China Post vehicle

Another variety of writing style, called boustrophedon, was used in some scripts, such as ancient Greek inscriptions and Hungarian runes. This method of writing alternates direction, and usually reverses the individual characters, on each successive line.