[Corpora-List] Right to left

[Christophe Lejeune]

Hello

As examples of right to left scripts, I send here the result of a
discussion with one of my colleague, François Renaville.
I am not sure you'll find webpages in those languages, but there are
items to add to your list :

* Greek (from the 8th century BC: written Greek reappears [after the use
of the Mycenaean script], it is an alphabet based on a North Semitic
model. To begin with, the Semitic direction of writing - right to left -
was copied, with frequent use of boustrophedon. After 500 BC, the
left-to-right mode became standardized.)
* Etruscan (based on Greek)
* Umbrian (Italic script, twin brother of Etruscan)
* Falsican (Italic script)
* Epigraphic South Arabian (in the middle of the second millennium BC,
in the south-west corner of the Arabian peninsula ; also boustrophedon
texts in the older period).
* Tifinagh (still in use among the Tuareg people)
* Hieroglyphs (the Egyptian script is read either vertically downwards,
or horizontally left to right or right to left [according to the
direction of the pictures])
* Old Uighur [or Uigur] (based on Syriac that Leonid Kontorovich mention
in a previous mail, used before for Mongolian. Uighur retained the
horizontal right-to-left format of syriac, and this format was still
being used in the fourteenth century by the Mongol Khans in Persia [in
China : vertical format, left to right across the page < Chinese
influence]. The Uighurs had long since adopted Islam, and with it the
Arabic script they still use.)
* Oscian (Italic script)
* <NOT SURE> Samaritan (member of semito-arabic family)
* <NOT SURE> Meroitic (Old Egypt)

Just our two cents.
Hope it helps !

Christophe Lejeune
Research Fellow (FNRS - Belgium / SMESS - ULG / GSPR - EHESS)
http://www.smess.egss.ulg.ac.be/lejeune/

And

François Renaville
Chief librarian for Dutch, English & German Languages
http://www.ulg.ac.be/libnet/ud12