3946
A question was asked on the Linguistics Stack Exchange about the oriental
languages. The title was the following: _[How are line breaks handled in
ideographic
scripts?](https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/1124/how-are-line-
breaks-handled-in-ideographic-scripts)_

The answer made me think, and I thought I'd ask here to have a wider range of
answers on the matter.

When writing Japanese, if we reach the end of the page, can we split the Kanji
and their okurigana? I'd like to bring an example but nothing comes to my
mind, so feel free to provide one, in case I don't do that first.

And another question on the first one: does this change if we are talking of
_handwritten_ VS _typed_ Japanese?
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-12-08T21:14:58.283
3943
2011-12-25T23:12:14.700
2017-04-13T12:54:11.000
-1
37
question
kanji okurigana publishing
Splitting Kanji and okurigana at the end of the line
I don't know if I should bring over my answer from the Linguistics SE or not.
In my experience, you can split anywhere between characters (including
okurigana), but it is still best to keep words together. Sometimes there is
really little choice but to split between the characters in a word. However,
as long as one is able, words should not be split.

In handwritten Japanese, I have never seen the characters that make up a word
or compound split lines. In typewritten Japanese, I see it all the time. I
cannot remember (as I don't have either on hand at the moment) how book or
manga text layout is handled.

The best example I can think of for typewritten has to do with resizing of
windows (or screen resolution) on a computer. Programs will automatically wrap
this text and it appears that a line will wrap when it comes to the edge of
the text box/window/whathaveyou regardless of kanji/kana word composition. It
is my understanding that proper wrapping (at the end of a word) can be
manually forced, but that it is not because it is tedious, can really mess up
a layout design, and is not really necessary.

I am interested in seeing what anyone else has to say, as this topic never
came up in any of my lessons and my reasoning is based solely on my experience
as a professional and as a consumer.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-12-08T22:09:03.703
3944
2011-12-08T22:09:03.703
3943
answer
If you hit the end of line, and you're out of space, yes, you can freely split
kanji and their okurigana. I have a novel right in front of me that does it
two lines in a row on the second page:

  * 彼女と初 **//** めて会った
  * 思 **//** い出してみるがいいよ.

Wikipedia says that the rules governing line-splitting in Japanese are called
[禁則【きんそく】処理【しょり】](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%A6%81%E5%89%87%E5%87%A6%E7%90%86),
and there are slight variations in implementation.

For example, [LibreOffice](http://help.libreoffice.org/Common/Asian_Layout)
uses the following lists and rules by default when typesetting Japanese text:

> **Characters that should not begin a line**
>
> (If a character typed here is positioned at the beginning of a line after a
> line break, it is automatically moved to the end of the previous line.)
>
>
> !%),.:;?]}¢°’”‰′″℃、。々〉》」』】〕ぁぃぅぇぉっゃゅょゎ゛゜ゝゞァィゥェォッャュョヮヵヶ・ーヽヾ！％），．：；？］｝｡｣､･ｧｨｩｪｫｬｭｮｯｰﾞﾟ¢
>
> (essentially: do not begin a line with a suffix, a terminating or closing
> punctuation mark, or any kana that changes the pronunciation1 of the kana
> that ended the previous line, including the sokuon)
>
> **Characters that should not end a line**
>
> (If a character typed here is positioned at the end of a line due to a line
> break, it is automatically moved to the beginning of the next line.)
>
> $([¥{£¥‘“〈《「『【〔＄（［｛｢£￥
>
> (essentially: do not end a line with a prefix or opening punctuation mark)

This basically lines up with what I see in novels. The process leaves the line
a character or so short, and in typeset text, justification is normally
applied, by increasing (追い出し) or decreasing (追い込み) the space between
characters. On 原稿【げんこう】用紙【ようし】, where this is obviously not possible, I'd
guess that punctuation which can't begin the next line is just stuck after and
outside the last box on the end of the previous line, or wedged into that last
box.

**However, when the location of the end of line is only roughly defined
instead of rigidly enforced,** for example when writing in a nebulously-
defined small region of a larger piece of paper, there's often a tendency to
split where it comes most naturally rather than when you run out of room. In
that case I feel (but I'm not a native, uh, writer) that it would be unusual
to split a kanji and its okurigana.

* * *

1 Incidentally, I find it amusing that they offer readers this comfort, yet
have no qualms about leaving the pronunciation of the last kanji on a page
entirely in question until you turn over...
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-12-08T22:35:19.073
3946
2011-12-09T16:16:35.150
2011-12-09T16:16:35.150
37
315
3943
answer