Re: Semitic RTL (Was: Ayeri: Menan Coyalayamoena ena McGuffey)

>From: Tim May <butsuri@...>
>Reply-To: Constructed Languages List <CONLANG@...>
>To: CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU
>Subject: Re: Semitic RTL (Was: Ayeri: Menan Coyalayamoena ena McGuffey)
>Date: Sat, 9 Apr 2005 22:38:23 +0100
>
>Benct Philip Jonsson wrote at 2005-04-09 22:49:45 (+0200)
>  > Carsten Becker skrev:
>  >
>  > > [1] This raises a question: The Proto-Semitics, were they mostly
>  > > left-handed, or why are semitic languages written from right to
>  > > left? It would be more natural for a left-handed person. I guess
>  > > left-to-right became the standard direction in Europe because
>  > > most people are right handed and writing is easier for them that
>  > > way.
>  >
>  > I've seen the right-to-left direction claimed to be an inheritance
>  > from pictographic writing.  When a right-handed person draws a
>  > person or an animal they tend to draw them looking leftwards, and
>  > that determined the direction of writing.
>  >
>
>But figures in Egyptian hieroglyphics face _into_ the line of reading,
if I remember my lessons, Egyptian hieroglyphs could go any direction
(left-right, right-left, top-bottom), the only requirement being that the
writer had to indicate which direction to use.

but I could be wrong.


>so left-facing animals would mean left-to-right reading order.

Reply