Got an e-mail the other day at YDC—a correspondent wants to know the terms, if there are any, for reading from right-to-left, left-to-right, up-and-down.
[quote author=Dr. Audra Himes link=board=what;num=1030557507;start=0#0 date=08/28/02 at 13:58:27]the terms, if there are any, for reading from right-to-left, left-to-right, up-and-down.
The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems has a long entry on writing direction, but gives only one named case: boustrophedon, for alternating left-to-right and right-to-left, which I imagine was the word that inspired your correspondent’s query in the first place. (BTW, boustrophedon ["ox-turning"] would make a nice WOTD some time, and it links back neatly into the techy thread you originally interrupted, because it’s exactly the way my old dot-matrix printer used to print!)
Anyway, various web searches for "boustrophedon" "writing" and "direction" have turned up empty for me: these styles really do seem to be called just plain "right-to-left", "left-to-right" and "vertical".
Cheers, Grant. With Agora members like you, I need never reach for a reference work again!
Boustrophedon would be a good WotD. I’m collecting so many WotD possibilities through discussion, I haven’t glanced into the Suggestion forum for awhile now!
The only term I know is, as Grant says, boustrophedon, "as the ox turns."
Early alphabet users (and perhaps ‘hieroglyphicians’) wrote back-and-forth much as an ox ploughed a field. As Mediterranean-area writing systems stabilized, the Greeks settled on a left-to-right approach, while the Semitic groups went right-to-left. Cuneiform, which originated with the non-Semitic Sumerians, was commonly written top-to-bottom, and that style seems to have faded away when the Akkadians abandoned Cuneiform for a less cumbersome alphabetic system.
This early directional confusion is also seen in the shapes of letters as they’ve come down to us. Greek-Latin ‘alpha’ is a 90-degree shift of Hebrew ‘aleph,’ ‘beta’ is a mirror of Hebrew ‘bet,’ and so forth.
The modern Hebrew alphabet, after some twists and turns via Aramaic, descends from Proto-Caananite and Phoenician, where the whole business originated, likely as a great leap forward from hieroglyphic ideograms. I can’t read Arabic script, but it too descends from the Proto-Caananite/Phoenician and Aramaic via a Nabatean offshoot. The Samaritans, who number perhaps 1,000 souls today, use a very old alphabet little changed from the Hebrew before its influence by Aramaic.
The whole matter is the subject of Joseph Naveh’s Early History of the Alphabet: An Introduction to West Semitic Epigraphy and Palaeography, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1982 and 1987.
[quote author=Dr. Audra Himes link=board=what;num=1030557507;start=0#3 date=08/28/02 at 14:42:40]Not reaching for a reference work again is a good thing—I fear I’m getting "Compact OED elbow."
What you need is the full second edition on CD-ROM, especially if you have enough room to stuff the whole 2GB straight on to your hard disk. The latest version lets you search for Greek text, specific languages, specific author quotations ...
(Sorry, sorry. I’m just having to stop to wipe the drool off my own keyboard ...)
Here’s a chance for some useful wordplay - although ‘right-to-left’ has merits, let’s face it is dull. we can borrow, though… How about ‘southpaw’ from boxing? Or ‘strine’ from the (my) antipodes, for bottom-to-top?
I recall once stumbling over the word that describes this process of borrowing a word from one regime and using it in another in a smilar manner. Anyone know that word?
[quote author=Linnet link=board=what;num=1030557507;start=0#8 date=08/29/02 at 12:43:03]
Struth, mate. I thought it meant an Australian or Australian English!
Yes it means that too. "The question", said Alice (as I recall), "is whether words can mean so many things."
"The question", replied Tweedledum, "is who is to be the master, that is all".
Bryn
[quote author=Linnet link=board=what;num=1030557507;start=0#8 date=08/29/02 at 12:43:03] Struth, mate. I thought it meant an Australian or Australian English!
I believe there was once a book titled Let Stalk Strine.
[quote author=Agoraphile link=board=what;num=1030557507;start=0#4 date=08/28/02 at 15:25:40]Grant, that wily rascal, beat me to it!
The only term I know is, as Grant says, boustrophedon, "as the ox turns." ...
I knew I recognized that word, from Aku-Aku by Thor Heyerdahl, describing the rongorongo writing of Easter Island.
pp.74-75: The sequence of the writing is a rare and curious one called "reversed boustrophedon" - that is, each line of script when it reaches the edge of the board turns back upside down to form the next line. This means that to read the script one must turn the board around at the end of each line.
snip
This means that to read the script one must turn the board around at the end of each line. end snip
It’s often said that the Jews of Yemen, poverty-stricken to the last soul and sharing a single book among a group, were so dedicated to their studies that they learned to read from any direction.
[quote author=Agoraphile link=board=what;num=1030557507;start=0#11 date=08/30/02 at 20:31:47]It’s often said that the Jews of Yemen, poverty-stricken to the last soul and sharing a single book among a group, were so dedicated to their studies that they learned to read from any direction.
My father, who was a type-setter in the days of hot metal, could read mirror-writing as easily as ordinary text.
[quote author=granthutchison link=board=what;num=1030557507;start=0#13 date=08/31/02 at 13:58:34]
My father, who was a type-setter in the days of hot metal, could read mirror-writing as easily as ordinary text.
In the days of hot lead, newspapers had a "stone editor" whose task was to cut stories to fit the page after they were set. The stone was the large block – of concrete, I suppose – on which sat the heavy chase holding the type. Hence the phrase, not often heard anymore, "to edit on the stone."
Camel brand cigarettes used to have the phrase "CHOICE QUALITY" printed on the side of the package. It made for a great parlour trick.
As the phrase no longer appears on the package, today you have to write it on a piece of paper. Do so and then hold it up to a mirror to witness an amazing feat of magic . . .
[quote author=Agoraphile link=board=what;num=1030557507;start=0#14 date=08/31/02 at 16:14:06]Camel brand cigarettes used to have the phrase "CHOICE QUALITY" printed on the side of the package. It made for a great parlour trick.
As the phrase no longer appears on the package, today you have to write it on a piece of paper. Do so and then hold it up to a mirror to witness an amazing feat of magic . . .
I remember reading about this in Martin Gardner’s "Mathematical Puzzles and Diversions" column in Scientific American. I don’t think the brand was available in the UK, so I had to write it out as you describe.
It’s important, I think, to hold the script turned vertically, as if it were written on the spine of a book (or the edge of a packet of cigarettes, for that matter!). The surprise happens when the mirror reverses the letters top-to-bottom, rather than left-to-right.
