Re: [Corpora-List] Right to left

From: Christophe Lejeune (Christophe.Lejeune@ulg.ac.be)
Date: Fri Jul 25 2003 - 10:16:51 MET DST

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    Hello

    As examples of right to left scripts, I send here the result of a
    discussion with one of my colleague, François Renaville.
    I am not sure you'll find webpages in those languages, but there are
    items to add to your list :

    * Greek (from the 8th century BC: written Greek reappears [after the use
    of the Mycenaean script], it is an alphabet based on a North Semitic
    model. To begin with, the Semitic direction of writing - right to left -
    was copied, with frequent use of boustrophedon. After 500 BC, the
    left-to-right mode became standardized.)
    * Etruscan (based on Greek)
    * Umbrian (Italic script, twin brother of Etruscan)
    * Falsican (Italic script)
    * Epigraphic South Arabian (in the middle of the second millennium BC,
    in the south-west corner of the Arabian peninsula ; also boustrophedon
    texts in the older period).
    * Tifinagh (still in use among the Tuareg people)
    * Hieroglyphs (the Egyptian script is read either vertically downwards,
    or horizontally left to right or right to left [according to the
    direction of the pictures])
    * Old Uighur [or Uigur] (based on Syriac that Leonid Kontorovich mention
    in a previous mail, used before for Mongolian. Uighur retained the
    horizontal right-to-left format of syriac, and this format was still
    being used in the fourteenth century by the Mongol Khans in Persia [in
    China : vertical format, left to right across the page < Chinese
    influence]. The Uighurs had long since adopted Islam, and with it the
    Arabic script they still use.)
    * Oscian (Italic script)
    * <NOT SURE> Samaritan (member of semito-arabic family)
    * <NOT SURE> Meroitic (Old Egypt)

    Just our two cents.
    Hope it helps !

    Christophe Lejeune
    Research Fellow (FNRS - Belgium / SMESS - ULG / GSPR - EHESS)
    http://www.smess.egss.ulg.ac.be/lejeune/

    And

    François Renaville
    Chief librarian for Dutch, English & German Languages
    http://www.ulg.ac.be/libnet/ud12



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