[CSS3 Ruby] writing directions of bopomofo ruby

In current CSS3 Ruby working draft, it says bopomofo ruby in the
context appears vertically along the right side of the base glyph,
whether the layout of the base characters is vertical or horizontal.
It sounds like that nobody writes bopomofo in horizontal mode.
Actually, that’s not true. I think bopomofo in horizontal mode existed
since its inception 100-something years ago. See the old figure,
probably back from 1930s, on Wikipedia site [1]. In Taiwan, usually
only bopomofo in vertical is taught in grade schools. However,
government standard/recommendation on writing/printing bopomofo in
horizontal is available from National Languages Committee (NLC),
Ministry of Education (MOE) [2].  The recommendation is written in
Chinese, but you can see how Bopomofo should be written horizontally
and the proportions of the base glyph and the bopomofo ruby glyphs are
defined/proposed in [3].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bpmf.gif
[2] 教育部國語推行委員會,《國語注音符號手冊》, 2000 (NLC, MOE, “Manual of Bopomofo”),
http://www.edu.tw/files/site_content/M0001/juyin/
[3] http://www.edu.tw/files/site_content/M0001/juyin/images/p221.jpg

-- 
// koan-sin tan

Received on Tuesday, 26 October 2010 05:01:08 UTC