Re: boustrophedon (was: Atlantis II)

John [18 June]:
> Dan Seriff scripsit:
>
> > Apparently there are none. It appears that Greek boustropedon was
> > realized in those two ways, which can be called inverted and
> > non-inverted. This is from the Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems.
>
> By inverted you mean reversed L<->R?
>
>
> IIRC, the boustrophedoid style of rongo-rongo is every other line upside
> down: rather than writing backward along the alternate lines, the whole
> writing surface (a tablet) was turned over in the hand.
The Livagian syllabary, as you know, is proper boustrophedon (except it
begins LTR each paragraph) so that the shapes of individual characters are
reversed (reflected about a vertical axis) on alternate lines, but the alphabet
is written as one long squiggle, written in any direction, with character
shapes defined relative to direction of writing, so if written boustrophedoid
the characters on alternate lines are not reflected but rotated 180 degrees.

Graphically:

Roman (lines of <b>s):

 > bbbbbbb >
 > bbbbbbb >
 > bbbbbbb >
 > bbbbbbb >

Liv. syllabary equivalent (lines of <b>s):

 > bbbbbbb >
 < ddddddd <
 > bbbbbbb >
 < ddddddd <

Liv. alphabet equivalent:

 > bbbbbbb >
 < qqqqqqq <
 > bbbbbbb >
 < qqqqqqq <

--And.

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