4 ms·

There are a lot of wild writing styles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boustrophedon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boustrophedon

JumpCrisscross 8y ago
Out of curiosity, why is single-directional reading more efficient (is it?) the Boutstrophedon? The latter would seem, at first glance, more efficient by minimizing eye "seek" time.
- thechao 8y ago
  Skimming requires tracking line parity. Remember that spaces are a relatively modern concept—lines of text just sort of break in the middle of words & all sort of nonsense.
  - Figs 8y ago
    Japanese is still like that. No spaces, and lines can just break in the middle of words -- though there are certain cases where word wrap algorithms are not allowed to split lines (and standardized rules for these cases). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_breaking_rules_in_East_Asian_languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_breaking_rules_in_East_As... if you're curious.
    - Tor3 8y ago
      True, but fortunately the particles come to the rescue. Generally a word is "tagged" with a particle indicating its grammatical significance, e.g. that it's the object of the sentence. And all the particles are Hiragana, so they stick out nicely. Helps with reading.
titanix2 8y ago
No, there are not. Top-down right-left, right-left top-down, left-right top-down, boustrophedon, "filling the available space (hieroglyph)" and that's it. I never heard of a writing system going bottom to top.
- waterhouse 8y ago
  The case that comes to mind is some road writings: https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/08043/images/fig1.jpg https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/08043/... I find it rather confusing that way, though; I think I've read it as "AHEAD STOP" and mentally scratched my head every time I've seen text like that (which isn't too often).
- ygra 8y ago
  > I never heard of a writing system going bottom to top. Ogham. Not exclusively bottom to top, but basically written around a standing stone in a ↱↴ fashion.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago

Out of curiosity, why is single-directional reading more efficient (is it?) the Boutstrophedon? The latter would seem, at first glance, more efficient by minimizing eye "seek" time.

thechao 8y ago
Skimming requires tracking line parity. Remember that spaces are a relatively modern concept—lines of text just sort of break in the middle of words & all sort of nonsense.
- Figs 8y ago
  Japanese is still like that. No spaces, and lines can just break in the middle of words -- though there are certain cases where word wrap algorithms are not allowed to split lines (and standardized rules for these cases). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_breaking_rules_in_East_Asian_languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_breaking_rules_in_East_As... if you're curious.
  - Tor3 8y ago
    True, but fortunately the particles come to the rescue. Generally a word is "tagged" with a particle indicating its grammatical significance, e.g. that it's the object of the sentence. And all the particles are Hiragana, so they stick out nicely. Helps with reading.

titanix2 8y ago

No, there are not. Top-down right-left, right-left top-down, left-right top-down, boustrophedon, "filling the available space (hieroglyph)" and that's it. I never heard of a writing system going bottom to top.

waterhouse 8y ago
The case that comes to mind is some road writings: https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/08043/images/fig1.jpg https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/08043/... I find it rather confusing that way, though; I think I've read it as "AHEAD STOP" and mentally scratched my head every time I've seen text like that (which isn't too often).
ygra 8y ago
> I never heard of a writing system going bottom to top. Ogham. Not exclusively bottom to top, but basically written around a standing stone in a ↱↴ fashion.