{"id":22245,"date":"2022-06-15T14:31:25","date_gmt":"2022-06-15T14:31:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=22245"},"modified":"2022-06-15T14:42:51","modified_gmt":"2022-06-15T14:42:51","slug":"turning-oxen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=22245","title":{"rendered":"Turning Oxen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/joegoauk73\/27720899097\/in\/photolist-JeARwa-8X58LC-t4dwqE-JeAR6k-Mc56iu-JeARTH-xuWCnZ-26MHZif-yae4qj-yqKRoq-bymWrq-at6tnG-bymZ9u-bMgH8r-2i7fkp3-i5dyTC-5LFCg5-7fLTFT-pzSvoh-EeZ32H-fGUrd-SRYfxG-akfWAJ-xuFkzw-TrWnLV-tAvZvD-xuNyDJ-Td5ngG-TrSFTV-TdaiwY-5HUhV2-SarWs7-TcZn9h-TfvUh6-TcY6BC-Sd1HQV-TcWPsq-Sd2TEn-TcWxxE-5cWB1Y-3854CW-rNpNsU-5eTtm8-SRWf2f-Saqts7-5eTth6-yrGNQT-Tdad4o-SanEjd-Sai3PU\" title=\"Ploughing\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/1747\/27720899097_a4ffa8232f_z.jpg\" alt=\"Ploughing\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\"><\/a><script async=\"\" src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Some early alphabets, such as Ancient Greek, Latin and Etruscan were written in a style known as <strong>boustrophedon<\/strong> [\u02ccbu\u02d0str\u0259\u02c8fi\u02d0d\u0259n], which involves alternate lines of a text being reversed, with letters also written in reverse. Here&#8217;s an example in Old \/ Archaic Latin:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/images\/langsamples\/udhr_archaiclatin1.gif\" alt=\"Article 1 of the UDHR in Old Latin\" width=\"600\" height=\"108\"><\/p>\n<p>The first and third lines of this text are written from right to left, while the second and fourth lines are written from left to right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Transliteration<\/strong><br \/>\nOpn\u0113s hemones decnot\u0101ti et iouesi louberoi et par\u0113s gn\u0101scontor, rationes et comscienti\u0101s particapes sont, quibos enter s\u0113d comcordi\u0101s stud\u0113\u014dd agontinom est.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Translation<\/strong><br \/>\nAll human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.<br \/>\n<em>(Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Translation (boustrophedon style)<\/strong><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/images\/langsamples\/udhr_english-boustrophedon.gif\" alt=\"Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English written in boustrophedon style\" width=\"584\" height=\"156\"><\/p>\n<p>The word <strong>boustrophedon<\/strong> could be translated literally as &#8220;like the ox turns [while plowing]&#8221;. It comes from <em>\u03b2\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c2<\/em> [b\u00fb\u02d0s] (ox), <em>\u03c3\u03c4\u03c1\u03bf\u03c6\u03ae<\/em> [stro.p\u02b0\u025b\u030c\u02d0] (turn), and the adverbial suffix <em>-\u03b4\u03cc\u03bd<\/em> [d\u00f3n] (like, in the manner of) [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Boustrophedon\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>From <em>\u03b2\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c2<\/em> we get such English words as <strong>beef<\/strong>, <strong>bovine<\/strong>, <strong>buffalo<\/strong>, <strong>butter<\/strong> and <strong>bulima<\/strong> [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/Category:English_terms_derived_from_the_Proto-Indo-European_root_*g%CA%B7%E1%B9%93ws\">source<\/a>], and the word <strong>cow<\/strong> comes from the same Proto-Indo-European root as <em>\u03b2\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c2<\/em> &#8211; <em>*g\u02b7\u1e53ws<\/em> (cattle) [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/cow#English\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>The word <em>\u03c3\u03c4\u03c1\u03bf\u03c6\u03ae<\/em> is the root of the English word <strong>strophe<\/strong>, which refers to &#8220;A turn in verse, as from one metrical foot to another, or from one side of a chorus to the other&#8221;, and appears in words like <strong>apostrophe<\/strong> and <strong>catastrophe<\/strong> [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/strophe#English\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>The old Mayan script was written in a way similar to boustrophedon: in paired columns zigzagging downwards from left to right.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/images\/langsamples\/smp_mayan.jpg\" alt=\"Sample of Mayan writing in the Mayan hieroglyphic script\" width=\"600\" height=\"472\"><br \/>\n<em>From: <a href=\"https:\/\/flic.kr\/p\/wZT64E\">Flickr<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Chinese, Japanese and Korean could be also be written in this way but aren&#8217;t, as far as I know. They could also be written in other directions as illustrated below.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/images\/langsamples\/udhr_boustrophedon-chinese.gif\" alt=\"Examples of boustrophedon writing in Chinese\" width=\"625\" height=\"324\"><\/p>\n<p>The text on the left starts on the top left and runs in vertical columns running from alternatively from top to bottom and bottom to top. The text on the right starts at the bottom right and runs in horizontal lines alternating from right to left and left to right.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re thinking of created a writing system, one thing to consider is giving it a unique writing direction. This might inspire you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some early alphabets, such as Ancient Greek, Latin and Etruscan were written in a style known as boustrophedon [\u02ccbu\u02d0str\u0259\u02c8fi\u02d0d\u0259n], which involves alternate lines of a text being reversed, with letters also written in reverse. Here&#8217;s an example in Old \/ Archaic Latin: The first and third lines of this text are written from right to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,104,222,107,10,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ancient-greek-","category-english","category-etruscan-mekh-rasnal","category-etymology","category-language","category-latin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22245"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22258,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22245\/revisions\/22258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}