Day328: Chefchaouen “Right to Left”

At first glance, it was nothing more than a bus stop timetable. But when everyone checks the time only by looking at this single chart, it is actually very clear, flexible, and well designed. Still, the fact that it was written from right to left felt slightly confusing to me. Arabic is a language read from right to left. When the writing system is different, it is only natural that the direction of diagrams is reversed as well. Japan once used right-to-left writing too, so many things must have originally followed the same direction. Even today, Japanese vertical books open in the opposite direction from English books, which is the same orientation as this diagram. Yet the fact that it feels somewhat strange now made me realize something: once the direction of horizontal writing changed, the orientation of diagrams must have changed along with it.

何でもない、バス停の時刻表だが、全ての人がココだけを見て時刻を知る場合にはとてもわかりやすいしフレキシブルでとても良い。ただ、右から左に書かれているのが少しわかりにくく思った。アラビア語は右から左に読む言語だ。筆記方法が異なると、当然ダイヤグラムの向きだって逆になる。日本もかつては右から左だったので、全てのものものかつてはそうだっただろう。日本語の縦書きの文庫本も英語の本とはめくる方向が逆でこのダイヤグラムと同じ方向だ。しかし、それで違和感を感じるということは、横書きの方向を変えた時点でダイヤグラムは向きが変わるのだ。