RE: Japanese RTL (was RE: Mongolian (was RE: Syriac and

From: Reynolds, Gregg (greynolds@datalogics.com)
Date: Wed Jan 12 2000 - 18:00:09 EST


> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Hudson [mailto:tiro@tiro.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2000 3:58 PM
>
> At 12:39 PM 12-01-00 -0800, Reynolds, Gregg wrote:
>
> >I was joking. But isn't it interesting that those cultures
> that produced
> >the Holy Books all used RTL writing? (I know, other
> religions have holy
> >writings too, but they have a different status within the religious
> >community than the big 3.)
>
> The distinguishing book of the 2nd of the 'big 3' was written
> LTR, in Greek.
>

Stay calm everybody. I think I can finesse this one.

Ahem. The second one is of course not one at all, but many: a library.
Since the Prince of Peace and His Pals spoke Syriac (Aramaic?), we can
assume that they wrote in one of the RTL scripts used to write that language
at the time. Hence, any notes they took must have been RTL. Also, they
must all have been left handed. But even assuming they were planning ahead
and scribbling awkwardly away in Greek, with the wrong hand, we can be
certain that Greek was their second language. Paul's epistles were probably
written in Greek, but the Gospels, the core book of the Bible, were first
composed in Aramaic. Yes, that is a wild speculation, but it could be true!
In any case, the clincher is that Greek is nothing more than Phoenician
written backwards, so its inner directionality is obviously RTL. It _wants_
to be a RTL language, it just forgot how.

Another theological catastrophe narrowly averted.

Your servant,

gregg



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