Field Journal 2 - improved

I was very surprised to learn how flexible writing with Egyptian hieroglyphics was. It was interesting to find out that Egyptians could write in four different directions: from left to right vertically, from left to right horizontally, from right to left horizontally and from right to left vertically. Sometimes more than one way of writing was combined in the same work.



Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics
http://www.ehow.com/how_4829656_translate-ancient-egyptian-hieroglyphics.html




Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics
http://www.crystalinks.com/egyptwriting.html

I found it very smart that they used the direction in which living creatures were facing to be a way to determine in which direction to read. The asymmetrical hieroglyphs, such as animals or humans, would face the beginning of the line; so if the hieroglyphs were facing left, the direction was from left to right, and vice versa, if the hieroglyphs were facing right, the direction was from right to left.



Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics
http://truthopia.wordpress.com/2009/04/08/ii-creation-and-the-origin-of-man-a-origin-of-language/

It’s hard to imagine how those manuscripts were read, when no punctuation existed and almost no spaces were used, with exception of some later writings. There are over two thousand picture symbols to represent sounds, words, ideas and thoughts in Ancient Egyptian writing system. Certain images were often used at the end of the word, which helped to separate the words. It is a very complex system; an added flexibility in the direction of writing makes it even more complex. It is also hard to comprehend how the writers had to memorize over 2000 symbols. In comparison the nowadays writing systems of European languages seem extremely easy.



Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics
http://truthopia.wordpress.com/2009/04/08/ii-creation-and-the-origin-of-man-a-origin-of-language/

Egyptian hieroglyphs, Papyrus of Ani (a section showing cursive hieroglyphs)
Time period: 3200 BC – AD 400
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_hieroglyphs

With the complexity that flexibility of direction had added to Egyptian hieroglyphs, it had its advantages in forms of graphic design. This flexibility allowed the creation of symmetrical inscription. An interesting detail, which explains some of the helpful aspect of being able to change the direction of writing, is that hieroglyphs face in direction of the picture of human being or god to which they referred, as can be seen in the image below. This makes a powerful statement in the design.

Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics
http://truthopia.wordpress.com/2009/04/08/ii-creation-and-the-origin-of-man-a-origin-of-language/

I especially like the colorful example below, the hieroglyphs are facing in the opposite directions make a beautiful symmetrical design, which utilizes the flexibility of the writing system.

Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics
http://www.bl.uk/learning/images/whywrite/new/printlarge7408.html

Having learned this information about Egyptian hieroglyphs, I start to wonder about such languages as Japanese, Chinese and Korean that remind me the most of the Ancient Egyptian writing system. I wonder how the individual glyphs can be arranged, and how does their meaning change in different arrangements. Granted that those languages no longer has explicit images of the objects, but many of the glyphs actually do represent some particular objects, like water, and also carry different meaning in different combinations and sound information.

It is interesting to compare the languages of the past with current day languages. The visual impact of the word had changed dramatically as language was simplified, and yet even today the power of typography in the nowadays designs cannot be undermined. There are so many different typefaces exist today. While the writing systems have changed, the written word still plays a very important role in graphic design.