Re: Constructed vertical writing systems?

From: "Peter Clark" <peter-clark@...>
Subject: Re: Constructed vertical writing systems?


> On Tuesday 22 April 2003 03:34 am, Tristan McLeay wrote:
> > I'm not sure if the Mongolian script has another name, but it's
> > vertically-written. Interestingly enough, the next line is to the right
of
> > the previous (unlike Chinese and kin).
>         This odd behavior is easily accounted for if you look at its
"geneology": And
> Phonecian begat Aramaic, and Aramaic begat Sogdian, and Sogdian begat
Uighur,
> and Uighur begat Mongolian. In other words, Mongolian's semitic heritage
is
> responsible for this quirk: if you take a Mongolian text and rotate it 90°
to
> the right, it will appear written as right-to-left. Probably right-handed
> Mongolian scribes got tired of smudging the ink and said, "I know! Let's
> rotate the paper a bit!" So you see, right-handedness can be a great
source
> of inspiration. ;>
And so can left-handedness, for the same reason.  For a number of years I've
been doing calligraphy, always in Roman or Greek characters, and as a lefty,
I have to turn the paper 90 degrees to the right.  This way the pen is at
the right angle and moving in the right direction.  Vertical and right to
left scripts then came very easily to me.

In the history of Babylonian cuneiform there was a change like this.  It
turned out to be more comfortable to write it at a 90 degree angle, so at
first it was like my calligraphy, written one way, then read another.  But
over time, people began reading the script at the same angle that it was
written.  So as a result, that big stela with the code of Hammurabi on it
had to be read by holding one's head sideways, like in the library, as the
older text was written at a 90 degree angle from the new text.