Boustrophedon and Ablaut Reduplication

Amazingly, I came across two new facts today that I didn’t know about writing and language (That is not really that hard since I’m not an expert in either by any means). The first, boustrophedon, was the “Word of the Day” on Dictionary.com. The other, ablaut reduplication, came in on my daily “ScienceABC Newsletter”. As usual, I find both fascinating.

            Boustrophedon is from the Early Greek meaning literally “like the ox turning”, as in plowing. It is an early form of writing that alternates direction line by line. The first line of writing is from right-to-left with the letters reversed. The second line is from left-to-right with the letters as we normally write. Successive lines continue to alternate. Cool, huh? I haven’t found anything explaining why this method was used, but it was used primarily on the stone tablets of the Greeks. Maybe because it was a quick way to write without the wasted motion of returning the hand and stylus to the edge to begin writing again. And I didn’t find anywhere where someone explained why our writing finally only went from left-to-right, especially since Arabic and Hebrew, to mention a couple civilizations, write right-to-left.

            The ablaut reduplication is when a word is repeated but with a modified vowel or an altered consonant. Examples given in the newsletter were “tick-tock” for the former, and “nitty-gritty” for the latter. There were no set rules, but it did explain that if the word had an “i”, then the next word would probably have an “a” or “o”. Again, the reason for this was not definitely explained, but two connected reasons were offered. The first involved the movement of the tongue. To make the “i” sound, the tongue moves very little, but when the other vowel is sounded, the tongue and lower jaw both move which requires more time and a lower sound. And the higher sounding “i” makes you think something else is coming, while the lower sounding “a” or “o” sounds likely it’s at the end.

            I find this type of information so fascinating. I can’t wait to find them as trivia answers. These would be quality additions to aglet and philtrum. 

(Gadugi 12 is the font)