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This may seem like a silly question, but does anyone know why the alphabet seems to flip from 500 bce (ancient Latin) to 1 ce (Roman)?
by gingericha 9y ago
This may seem like a silly question, but does anyone know why the alphabet seems to flip from 500 bce (ancient Latin) to 1 ce (Roman)?
- def- 9y agoSame question came up on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/8am0si/evolution_of_the_english_alphabet/dwzqvk6/ https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/8am0si/e... > Linguist here! In those ancient languages, there was no standard writing direction or standardized spelling conventions. In fact the Greeks often wrote in either direction alternating in a method called "boustrophedon" which means "ox-turning." You get to the end of the line and then write backwards to the other side of the page; it's actually much better for reading. Answer by sandscript
- em3rgent0rdr 9y ago"boustrophedon" sounds extremely useful. Too bad that practice didn't remain. I always find my eyes loose track of where the next row starts, especially with small text and/or wide screens/paper.
- thechao 8y agoThe fastest way to go rasterize fixed sized tiles on LRB was boustrophedon—only requires ~9 registers, and takes 3c per 16 samples, amortized.
- daurnimator 8y agoLRB?
- thechao 8y agoLarrabee; an old Intel part.
- gnicholas 8y agoI made a browser plugin that uses color gradients to help with this precise problem: http://www.beelinereader.com/individual http://www.beelinereader.com/individual. I had no idea how widespread this problem was until I posted a Show HN and my website grinded to a halt. It turns out line tracking is an issue for readers with dyslexia, various visual problems, and ADHD.
- zeth___ 8y agoWhen you hand write you need to switch hands on the reverse line. It's quite difficult to teach people to be ambidextrous.
- khedoros1 8y agoI used to take notes that way in college sometimes (i.e. more that once, but not for anything very important). It felt almost natural to mirror the letters while also writing right-to-left.
- mojuba 9y agoCouldn't find any information on this. The historical answer may be something simple and silly, but I'd like to think it's to do with the fact that our brain is not initially wired to distinguish straight images from mirrored ones. We acquire this ability at some stage as we learn to write (children may at some point confuse the letters and draw them mirrored). So maybe back when literacy was so low and scripts were used only occasionally, to most literate people it didn't matter which way you drew each letter, until someone decided to canonicalize it. I suppose the choice was arbitrary.
- phicoh 9y agoIf you use pen and ink, then the current left to right writing of the latin alphabet is very convenient for right handed people.
- mojuba 9y agoIt doesn't explain though how ꓭ became B.
- dghughes 9y agoI can imagine a person writing a B using their right hand moving left to right. To me (maybe in hindsight and biased) it seems more natural to write B that way. But there may be cultures who write B but write right to left or both ways boustrophedonically "as the ox plows" like ancient Greeks did. My reasoning is once the vertical line part is drawn it would be awkward to go backward for the two bumps. Especially if using ink not chilling it into stone. You would end up smearing the ink. But even with stone or ink you'd have more room on the right for spacing between the previous and next letter.
- mojuba 9y agoIt seems very subjective. There are letters where you start with the curve and end with the straight line, like lower case d. So for the mirrored B there's nothing wrong with starting with Ɛ and adding the straight line afterwards. So still, the final choice seems pretty arbitrary to me.
- riffraff 9y agoI am guessing, but originally there wasn't a defined writing direction, ancient latin texts are left-to-right, right-to-left and boustrophoedic (continuous left-right-left line). Possibly the letter direction followed the word direction, and when left-right was established so were letters?
- irrational 9y agoThe author addresses it right there on the page: As for why so many of the letters flipped, it's because they used to be written in both directions. But with the introduction of ink, left to right eventually became standard (less smudging if you're right-handed).