# Do right to left reading cultures type smilies like (-:

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-right-to-left-reading-cultures-type-smilies-like/512628>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 5, 2009, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-right-to-left-reading-cultures-type-smilies-like/512628 "2009-10-05T02:48:03Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\
**Post date:** [October 5, 2009, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-right-to-left-reading-cultures-type-smilies-like/512628/1 "2009-10-05T02:48:03Z")

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Just curious.

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**Author:** ![ghostman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a3d4f5/32.png) [@ghostman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ghostman)\
**Post date:** [October 5, 2009, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-right-to-left-reading-cultures-type-smilies-like/512628/2 "2009-10-05T12:55:03Z")

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Not an answer really, but I type my smiled like this (: and I read LTR (usually)  
d:  
(:

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**Author:** ![Turble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Turble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Turble)\
**Post date:** [October 5, 2009, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-right-to-left-reading-cultures-type-smilies-like/512628/3 "2009-10-05T15:14:47Z")

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Japanese is read down from the right then left to next column … so their smilies aren’t slanted. 🙂

^\_~

\>.\<

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**Author:** ![Apollyon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/apollyon/32/4238_2.png) [@Apollyon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollyon)\
**Post date:** [October 6, 2009, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-right-to-left-reading-cultures-type-smilies-like/512628/4 "2009-10-06T01:08:45Z")

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> [@Turble](#):
>
> Japanese is read down from the right then left to next column

Traditionally, yes, but left-to-right (horizontal) is common in modern use. (As is Chinese).

To the OP – I don’t read any languages like that and was waiting to see if a native speaker had a definitive answer – I can say that from researching internationalization / localization that when western names / company name abbreviations (for example) appear embedded in Arabic text they remain written left-to-right, e.g.  
word#5 word#4 IBM word#2 word#1

If the smiley is treated as a logogram (rather than a collection of 3 punctuation symbols) then I’d expect it to remain in the familiar form / adopted form rather than getting reversed, however the Japanese tend to use their own smilies as **Turble** showed.

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**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\
**Post date:** [October 6, 2009, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-right-to-left-reading-cultures-type-smilies-like/512628/5 "2009-10-06T04:43:31Z")

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For Urdu, yes.