Re: Boustrophedon and Chinese Re: A single font can display ANY alphabet, pictograph

you're absolutely right on the spelling - i got muddled.
what i meant by irregular starting position is that often
boustrophedon styles have been used in the early stages of a written
system's development, when there is no standardization even to things
like text direction, and that therefore it would not be unreasonable
for it to start from a variety of places, from text to text.  as to
what greek actually did when written this way, i defer to you.
kit

On Oct 14, 2005, at 2:45 AM, R A Brown wrote:
> It is spelled _boustrophedon_ just as Tom wrote it. The word is an
> ancient Greek adverb, meaning "turning like an ox in ploughing/
> plowing" <-- bou- "ox" + strophe "turning, twist".
>
> It existed in Greek, hence the origin of the term, and it was _not_
> irregular in its starting. The first line & all odd numbered lines
> went from right to left & the even numbered lines from left to right.
>
> The Phoenician alphabet was used for writing Greek from about the
> 10th cent BCE and ran, just like Hebrew & Arabic, from right to
> left. Then from the 8th cent BCE IIRC boustrophedonic inscriptions
> become common, giving way gradually to the later completely left to
> right direction, still used in Greek and by Greek-derived alphabets
> like Roman & Cyrillic.
>
> Boustrophedonic writing survived at least till the 5th cent BCE,
> which is well into the literary period.
>
> The term, it is true, is often applied to other scripts in which
> the direction of writing changes; but these were not necessarily in
> the old Greek manner. The ancient language (Rongorongo) of Easter
> Island is written in alternate lines was rotated 180 degrees, not
> mirrored.
> --
> Ray

Reply