Right to Left Languages
There are many languages that are written in a completely different direction than English. Actually, the script is what decides directionality.
This can cause lots of confusion when learning a language. When entering text, most of our computers won’t allow for changing text directions unless you create special settings.
Some examples of Right to Left Languages include:
1. Arabic
2. Hebrew
3. Farsi
4. Pashto
5. Urdu
Japanese, Chinese, and Korean are also challenging as they can be written either way depending on usage.
When learning a new language, be sure that you understand which direction the language should be written.
What other languages have interesting direction issues?
One Response to Right to Left Languages
March 29th, 2010 at 10:34am
Boustrophedon!! This is a type of script that changes direction when reaching the end of a line. So it might start left-to-right but at the end of the line it changes, and the next line starts right-to-left. Ancient Greek did this in stone inscriptions. Hieroglyphic Luwian is another ancient language that read boustrophedon. And Atlantean (from the Disney movie Atlantis) read boustrophedon as well. Fun!