Boustrophedon (boost-ruh-FEE-d’n, meaning “as the ox turns”) is a writing style mainly used in a number of ancient civilizations, where the direction of reading changes with each and every line. So, say, the first line you read left-to-right, and then the second line you read right-to-left, and then the third line is left-to-right again, and so on. This way of writing had several benefits for ancient peoples even though nowadays writing backwards every other line sounds crazy to us.
I don’t know how it would actually work to read comic book panels and speech bubbles in a boustrophedon order, so it was really just a dumb joke.
I’ve heard that in cultures where writing evolved from stone carving, the writing direction preferred the right to left direction since the chisel could be held more comfortably. Similarly in cultures where writing evolved from leaf or cow hide type manuscripts left to right was the norm.
I wonder what the evolutionary path would be for a boustrophedonous system.
Boustrophedon (boost-ruh-FEE-d’n, meaning “as the ox turns”) is a writing style mainly used in a number of ancient civilizations, where the direction of reading changes with each and every line. So, say, the first line you read left-to-right, and then the second line you read right-to-left, and then the third line is left-to-right again, and so on. This way of writing had several benefits for ancient peoples even though nowadays writing backwards every other line sounds crazy to us.
I don’t know how it would actually work to read comic book panels and speech bubbles in a boustrophedon order, so it was really just a dumb joke.
Ooh that’s so interesting!
I’ve heard that in cultures where writing evolved from stone carving, the writing direction preferred the right to left direction since the chisel could be held more comfortably. Similarly in cultures where writing evolved from leaf or cow hide type manuscripts left to right was the norm.
I wonder what the evolutionary path would be for a boustrophedonous system.