Boustrophédon

One qualifies boustrophédon the layout of a written form which changes alternatively direction line after line, with the manner of ox marking the furrows in the fields, from right to left then from left to right. Often, the Ductus of the letters is reversed by changing direction; for example, the letter Є traced from left to right would become Э from right to left. This word comes from the Greek βουστροφηδόν boustrophêdón , of βοῦς boũs “ox” and στροφή strophế “action to turn” - although in Greek the word is an adverb, it is a name in French.

Were written in boustrophédon mainly old stages of writing S which were then fixed in a precise direction: the Greek , for example, was initially written from right to left, as the phenician from where it is resulting, then in boustrophédon and finally from left to right. The passage by the boustrophédon mark thus a hesitation. The Etruscan Alphabet functions sometimes thus. The shelves rongo-rongo of the Easter Island are written in boustrophédon opposite: one reads the first line of the left towards the line, then one makes turn the shelf of 180°, one also reads the second line of the left towards the line, and so on de.

Example of Greek text antiquated in boustrophédon

Inscription of Sigeion, towards 550-540 before the Christian era (British Museum, number of inventory BM GR. 1816.6-10.107 ):

Foot-note bucket : the inscription is presented in two alphabets and dialects: Ionian then attic (with the local Alphabet epichoric); the example given takes again only the text written in Ionian dialect (from where the use of η where the attic would have ᾱ), with the current letters and not those of the original document. Indeed, this one going back to before the reform from -403 (adoption of an official alphabet slightly different from the local practice), it does not follow either the traditional orthography: ο, for example, is used to note the vowel/ọ̄/(long and closed), who will be then transcribed ου (Φανοδίκο = Φανοδίκου, etc).

The text means: “I am stele of Phanodikos, Hermokratês, of Prokonnêsos, and it gave to Sigéens a vase for the wine with its support as well as a strainer, in the academy”.

In the data-processing language

The term of boustrophédon indicates a manner of functioning of the print heads of a Imprimante, when they are able to print in the two directions of displacement of the carriage.

The boustrophédon term also indicates a computer program whose execution does not finish.

Mathematical application

In mathematics a method is known as " of boustrophédon" allowing to calculate the limited development of the tangent into 0. Each line is written in the contrary direction of the preceding one, by carrying out the sum of the term writes previously and of the term written above. For example: 1 - > 0 1 1 1 0 < - > 0 1 2 2 5 5 4 2 0 < - > 0 5 10 14 16 16 Now, take the column of right-hand side (without the first figure), that is to say: 1,0,2,0,16 (called continuation of Bernouilli) and you obtain the limited development of tangent as follows (into 0):

tan (X) = 1*x + 0*X ² + 2*x ³ /3! + 0*x ⁴ /4! + 16*x ⁵ /5! + O (X ⁵), which gives us, simplifications make:

tan (X) = X + X ³ /3 + 2x ⁵ /15 + O (X ⁵)

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