Fun Fact: In ancient Greek manuscripts, there were no lowercase letters, no punctuation, and no spaces between words. So pretty much every ancient Greek text you’ve likely read is written in modern Greek orthography.
So for example, the opening lines of the Iliad
>Μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεά, Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος
>οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί’ Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε’ ἔθηκε,
>πολλὰς δ’ ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄϊδι προΐαψεν
>ἡρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν
>οἰωνοῖσί τε δαῖτα· Διὸς δ’ ἐτελείετο βουλή·
>ἐξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα διαστήτην ἐρίσαντε
>Ἀτρεΐδης τε ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν καὶ δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς.
Was originally written as
>ΜΗΝΙΝΑΕΙΔΕΘΕΑΠΗΛΗΙΑΔΕΩΑΧΙΛΗΟΣ
>ΟΥΛΟΜΕΝΗΝΗΜΥΡΙΑΧΑΙΟΙΣΑΛΓΕΕΘΗΚΕ
>ΠΟΛΛΑΣΔΙΦΘΙΜΟΥΣΨΥΧΑΣΑΙΔΙΠΡΟΙΑΨΕΝ
>ΗΡΩΩΝΑΥΤΟΥΣΔΕΕΛΩΡΙΑΤΕΥΧΕΚΥΝΕΣΣΙΝ
>ΟΙΩΝΟΙΣΙΤΕΠΑΣΙΔΙΟΣΔΕΤΕΛΕΙΕΤΟΒΟΥΛΗ
>ΕΞΟΥΔΗΤΑΠΡΩΤΑΔΙΑΣΤΗΤΗΝΕΡΙΑΣΝΤΕ
>ΑΤΡΕΙΔΗΣΤΕΑΝΑΞΑΝΔΡΩΝΚΑΙΔΙΟΣΑΧΙΛΛΕΥΣ

>>17833532 (OP)
it's not modern greek orthography, it's hellenistic greek from the 3rd century BC, created to help non-greeks learn koine

>>17833532 (OP)
This is fake and gay.

>>17833549
Lowercase letters and spaces between words in Greek did not exist until the middle ages

That seems to be a common theme in ancient writing systems. China also did not use any punctuation or spaces in its writing, and neither did the Romans. I'm not sure about Hieroglyphs and Cuneiform though. I don't think they did have spaces, but not sure about punctuation.

>>17833578
it appears you are correct, TIL.

>>17833532 (OP)
Why did it take so long for such a simple and useful thing to exist?
Imagine the absolute nightmare it was to read long books back then

>>17833532 (OP)
The fuck... what about Sanskrit?

>>17833532 (OP)
Another common trait in some texts and carvings is that the direction of writing changed line by line
->->->->->->
<-<-<-<-<-<-
->->->->->->
<-<-<-<-<-<-
Essentially when you finished a line, you'd just start from the end of it and write back to where you started.
Called the 'ox turning method'.

>>17833579
Egyptian hieroglyphics had no punctuation. Nouns were usually easily separated in a reader's mind because of extensive repetition and use of determinatives at the end of words to show what class it belonged to.
For example, the Egyptian name for Egypt, km.t = "Black Land" so named after its fertile black soil [Gardiner number in brackets]:
[I6] "km", biliteral sign used as phonogram
[G17] "m", uniliteral sign to show that the previous hieroglyph had a pronunciation that ended with the consonant m (as some had multiple possible pronunciations)
[X1] "t", the feminine suffix (transcribed as .t) as was common for lands
[O49] determinative symbol, to show that the whole word was a place-name
Triliteral signs would often in a similar fashion be followed by a biliteral sign and a third uniliteral sign, plus suffixes and determinatives, in an overly cautious method to ensure a priest was able to read the writing on the wall correctly.

Royal names having cartouches around them might be counted as a rare type of punctuation, but those often had other confusing fuckery, like putting a god's name in the beginning as a sign of honor when it was pronounced last.
The bottom shows pharaoh Menkaura's name in a cartouche, which one might naively read from top to bottom as something like Ramenkau. (Note that the vowels are imaginary and follow the conventional Egyptological method of making strings of consonant-only text pronounceable to another archeologist while doing fieldwork)

>>17833532 (OP)

>be pagans

>invent the absolute worst script known to man

>christians only fix it a few hundred or so years after to write down God's word

>be also christians

>be better than pagans in every way imaginable

>>17833532 (OP)
The Illiad was not originally written, it was recited.
Checkmate

>>17833621
neat

SPACESREMOVESOVL

>>17833532 (OP)
It's an indicator of higher iq

>>17833732
>confusing fuckery, like putting a god's name in the beginning as a sign of honor when it was pronounced last.
so the ISIS flag retardation has a time-honored precedent?

>>17833621
>ox turning method
it's called 'boustrophedon' if I remember correctly

>>17833619
Most Sanskrit you see nowadays is written in Devanagari script, like Hindi, but Devanagari is from the 11th century. Texts like the Vedas, Upanishads, Mahabharata and so on would have originally been written in various Brahmic scripts which look very different.

>>17834542
>ISIS flag retardation
What are you referring to? It uses a variant of the Seal of Muhammad

>>17833621
why is this the first time hearing about this wtf

>>17834642
yes, and it reads 'allah rasul muhammad', 'god (is) the messenger of muhammad', because 'allah' must not be written at the bottom.

>>17834937
Well, why do you assume it has to be read top to bottom

>>17833532 (OP)
wait until you hear about the fringe writing system called """Chinese""", which doesn't have spaces and lowercase and only recently added punctuation. How do they manage.

>>17834937
Couldn't that be read something like "God, Muhammad prophet of" I have no clue about Arabic so I don't know if that makes grammatical sense but if this is the case I see the logic even though it is quite confusing
>>17834949
>which doesn't have spaces and lowercase and only recently added punctuation
IMEANWECANTECHNICALLYUNDERSTANDTHISTOO
>How do they manage
I also believe the fact the symbols represent words by themselves help with the separation problem

>>17833532 (OP)
cobson the language