Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] from right to left or from top to bottom?

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: George Athas <George.Athas AT moore.edu.au>
  • To: B-Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] from right to left or from top to bottom?
  • Date: Wed, 6 May 2009 08:30:38 +1000

Hi James.

Firstly, a reminder to put your full name at the end of your posts, please.

Secondly, that table in Wikipedia, is really weird. I think it shows the
unpredictable value of Wikipedia, rather than the history of Semitic scripts.
Some of the suggestions are completely out of left field.

The thing with the alphabet is not that the figures preserved the original
pictograph, but rather were developed from pictographs into more schematic
and easily written forms. That's the theory. Ease of writing is what matters,
more than preservation of picture. So, whether the figures were turned around
at all, we just don't know. Certainly it seems that the forms were rotated
somewhat from their Semitic position to form the letters of the Greek
alphabet - or the Greeks just looked at the alphabet from across the other
side of the table (!). It's not hard to see how aleph developed into alpha,
kaph into kapp, etc.

Boustrophedon is also a common phenomenon in the early Mediterranean world.
This is where one line is written in one direction (say left to right) and
the next line is written in the opposite direction (right to left). This
produces a snaking-pattern for reading, rather than a singular direction. It
happens a bit in Greek texts, but not so much in Semitic texts. In any case,
I think it demonstrates that writing direction was, at one time, fairly
fluid. Egyptian hieroglyphs are another case in point - they can be read in
either direction, depending on the orientation of the glyphs.




Regards,

GEORGE ATHAS
Moore Theological College (Sydney, Australia)
www.moore.edu.au





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page