proposed question: which languages are RTL?

Here is a start on this question-

Which languages are right-to-left (RTL)?

Background

This is a common question, although incorrectly phrased. Knowing
which languages are right-to-left is important to web designers
and authors, because the so called right-to-left languages are
more complicated to work with and the organization and
directionality of the page layout are affected. Therefore, knowing the writing
direction can be relevant to estimating the work involved to create web pages
in a new language.

Why is the question incorrectly phrased? There are 2 inaccuracies
within this question. First, languages don't have a writing
direction, the script used to write them determines the
direction. For example, Yiddish is generally written in the
Hebrew script, which is right-to-left. But it can also be written
using the Latin script which is left-to-right.

The second inaccuracy concerns the use of the term "right-to-
left". Although the majority of the text will be written right-
to-left, numbers are still written left-to-right (LTR). In
addition, right-to-left text will often include borrowed or
foreign words written in their native left-to-right script, and
so the text is mixed directionality. The proper term therefore is
"bidirectional". However, "right-to-left" is very commonly used,
and as long as it is understood that a script with a "right-to-left" writing
direction is in fact bidirectional, the terms "right-to-left" and
"bidrectional" can be used interchangeably.
There is more information on the different directionalities of
scripts in:
http://www.unicode.org/faq/middleeast.html

Answer

Languages generally do have a preferred script and
writing direction. The following scripts are bidirectional, and
therefore languages written in these scripts are also
bidirectional: Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, Thaana

The following languages are generally written in bidirectional
scripts:

Hebrew, Yiddish, Ladino,
Arabic, Farsi/Persian, Syriac, Avesta, Kök Turki, Manchu, Middle
Persian, Mongolian, Sogdian, South Arabic, Uighur, Maldivian,
Urdu, Kazakh, Uzbek, Tajik. Malay, Swahili, Hausa, Algerian
Tribal, old Malay, Baluchi, Kashmiri, Sindhi, Pashto, Landha,
Dargwa, Morrocan Arabic, Adighe, Ingush, Berber, Kurdish,
Jawi/Javanese.

Note that this list, of necessity, is not complete. There are too
many languages in existence to identify them all here.

Note that languages written in Latin, Slavic, Cyrillic, (Modern) Greek and
Thai scripts are left-to-right.

Ideographic languages are more flexible in their writing
direction. They are generally written left-to-right, or
vertically top-to-bottom (with the vertical lines perhaps
proceeding from right to left). However, they may also,
optionally, be written right-to-left. Chinese newspapers
sometimes combine all of these writing directions on a page.
Fortunately for web designers and authors, in this case, the
direction is up to the designer.

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Tex Texin   cell: +1 781 789 1898   mailto:Tex@XenCraft.com
Xen Master                          http://www.i18nGuy.com
                         
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Received on Thursday, 10 July 2003 04:09:51 UTC