On Fri, 14 May 2004 11:09:19 +0100, Michael Everson wrote: > > At 02:40 -0700 2004-05-14, Andrew C. West wrote: > > >(not that Ogham's strictly BTT, but it is largely BTT in monumental > >inscriptions > > I think it is always BTT in the inscriptions.
My understanding is that when written along the arris of a "memorial stone", the inscription goes up one arris, and then either continues from the bottom of another arris going upwards again, or continues directly down another arris so that it follows an inverted V or U line; so technically inscriptional Ogham would be either BTT or vertical boustrophedon. But, on the other hand, Pictish Ogham inscriptions on flat slabs are largely adirectional. > > >-- although for convenience it is almost always written LTR on paper > >and on screen ... and even in the Unicode code charts) > > As it has been for centuries. Which is eminently sensible. I see no reason to mimic the original vertical orientation of Ogham inscriptions in text. If I did want to reproduce the exact textual layout of an Ogham inscription I would opt for a photograph or drawing of the inscription rather than try to format the text into twisted lines. Nevertheless, if a Mongolian script expert were to write a book on Ogham in Mongolian, he would probably embed Ogham text vertically within the vertical Mongolian text of the book. In which case, would he write the Ogham text TTB following Mongolian directionality, or BTT following inscriptional directionality ? Andrew
