Re: Scripts

Tristan McLeay nevesht:
>
>On Thu, 2002-07-11 at 10:51, Jake X wrote:
> > >On Sun, 7 Jul 2002 00:17:50 -0700 Barry Garcia <barry_garcia@...>
> > >writes:
> > > > CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU writes:
> > > > I Never thought so, mostly because i hadn't learned that scripts
> > > > could go
> > > > right to left, until i learned about Hebrew and Arabic (and by then
> > > > i had
> > > > already learned how Devanagari goes).
> >
> > IIRC, Braille is both, depending on line, but I think left-right first.
>In
> > other words, so that the blind need not find the beginning of the next
>line,
> > the line below begins just under where the line above ended and runs the
> > opposite direction. Is that not correct? Anyhow, I like that way best.
>Oh,
> > that and bottom to top, just to be different.
> > Does anyone know of conscripts like that. Does anyone want to
>incorporate
> > that idea in their script?
>
>I believe left-to-right-to-left etc. writing styles are called
>'boustrophedon', because it was likened to the way oxen plough.
>Ancient Greek when it went from being RTL to LTR went through a
>boustrophedon stage, many runic inscriptions were done boustophedonly,
>too. As for bottom-to--top, I don't think I've heard of any that do
>that. Seems like it'd be more trouble than it's worth. Actually, for
>your average right-hander, LTR, TTB is probably easiest because your
>hand/arm covers the bottom-right of the page. Unless all the Ancient
>Chinese scribes were left handed, I have *no* idea how their direction
>originated.
>
>Tristan.
Bottom to top:
Batak: originally left to right, on outside of containers, written on the
opening to right, so when on base(as it is read) it goes up.
Ogham: up the first side, across the top left to right, then down the last
Chinese: early texts written on slips of bamboo, hold one line and naturally
hangs down, and if you adapt L2R so it starts at the top, you get the
chinese direction, just as if Arabic is written vertically(e.g by the
Hausa)it has the same directionality as Mongolian.

-Wayne Chevrier


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