2016-05-04 4:14 GMT-03:00 Shriramana Sharma <samj...@gmail.com>: > Isn't there some Japanese orthography feature that already does > something like this?
Japanese (and Chinese) vertical calligraphy can do arbitrary-length stretching of lines (like the Arabic kashida under discussion, and like most cursive scripts in the world, I guess). Notice e.g. the long lines here: https://www.instagram.com/seiichirou_uemura/ . The hiragana letter し、 in particular, often becomes a long vertical line. However, traditionally this is used for æsthetic rhythm, not for justification. In fact, most kinds of Japanese calligraphy prize variation in line length, not uniformity. And when uniformity is sought (e.g. certain sutras), they don't use stretched lines, but just fill a grid with non-cursive, block (kaisho) characters. I'm not aware of similar features for typography. Because the script doesn't separate words, justification is comparatively simple–you just break lines mid-word, mostly wherever (with a few restrictions to avoid hanging punctuation and so on.)