Talk:Hieratic
| WikiProject Writing systems | (Rated Start-class, Mid-importance) | ||||||||||||||||
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| WikiProject Ancient Egypt | (Rated Start-class) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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[edit] Suggested Changes
Re: standardisation of horizontal writing. "This may have been to prevent the scribe's hand from smudging his work (1), but it also may have been to facilitate easier consultation of a rolled document, as well as increasing writing speed (2)."
Argument: Author makes invalid speculation (1) and (2). Proposed action: Delete this line.
1. Smudging of work has nothing to do with vertical or horizontal scripting. It is caused by the direction of the script between left and right conflicting with the hand used by the writer. It will happen in all forms of writing where the stylus is grasped close to the page and this conflict occurs. A typical example occurs in classrooms (left > right script) when a left-handed person writes English in pen and smudges their work. If the same person wrote in vertical script their writing would still smudge unless the ink dried rapidly because the columns still would run left>right and the writing hand would still brush over the existing writing. Smudging would similarly occur if a right handed person wrote right>left either horizontally or vertically without due care.
2. The author's argument is only true if a scribe using vertical script would orient their 'page' in portrait format, rather than in landscape. By changing the page layout to a (horizontally scrolling) landscape format when using vertical script, there is essentially no difference in the speed by which one may draft or consult a rolled document. This layout has the same advantages as horizontal script in a (vertically scrolling) portrait layout so long as the reader/writer is equally familiar with both. HMS DigDug (talk) 01:44, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
What is the DIRECTION of writing? right to left? left to right? vertical?
Please sign your comment so we know this is an old question! HMS DigDug (talk) 08:04, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
[edit] Reassessment
Well, the article has improved a lot, but it is still "start" class. It is still missing important information, such as how the script actually records the language (how similar is it to hieroglyphics?) and the "influence" section needs to be finished. An article can only be "B" class when all but the most minute details have been included. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 03:38, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Image removed
The image to the left indicates left-to-right writing, which seems like erroneous: the src at omniglot.com claims that Hieratic was right-to-left writing. The image is misleading, so I removed it from the article. Rursus dixit. (mbork3!) 10:40, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
