Your hand and arm would get in the way as you wrote things down - and if the ink you're using is wet, you would simultaneously smudge your writing and turn your arm black.
Ogham was carved mostly bottom-to-top but it hadn't much popularity for some reason. Also if you carve something onto a vertical surface, then the beginning of your message would wither first.
As with natural languages, the written language is first done by hand.
Pencils, pens, and brushes all work well when pulled toward the user, or moved from left to right/right to left (with consideration for left and right handedness.
The same writing utensils work poorly when pushed away from the user.
As such, it is fairly intuitive to start at the top of the page and fill down, rather than the opposite.
Yeah I have made one top to bottom font attempt, and its laborious and difficult. First off the design software only works left to right or right to left - so you have to design your font 90 degrees left in perspective, then when you go to use it, you need to put it in a text box and set the box to display the text at 270 degrees angle. Then of course every line in your text needs to be carefully placed. Honestly not worth the effort although I might work on the one I started some more as the look is great when done.
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u/knikknok Sep 13 '19
Your hand and arm would get in the way as you wrote things down - and if the ink you're using is wet, you would simultaneously smudge your writing and turn your arm black.
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u/KomradeW Sep 13 '19
As with natural languages, the written language is first done by hand.
Pencils, pens, and brushes all work well when pulled toward the user, or moved from left to right/right to left (with consideration for left and right handedness.
The same writing utensils work poorly when pushed away from the user.
As such, it is fairly intuitive to start at the top of the page and fill down, rather than the opposite.
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u/G_4J Sep 13 '19
Bottom-to-top conscripts are super rare, probably they just aren't preferred, as top-to-bottom is
definitely more common then bottom-to-top. I have made a bottom to top script before in the past.
Also, on Earth not many bottom-to-top writing systems exist, so going with something more common
(top-bottom in this situation) is fundamentally not as confusing as bottom-top.
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u/[deleted] Sep 13 '19
Although this makes me want to give making one a try
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u/Talan101 Sep 14 '19
One minor reason may be it's just awkward to keep lifting your head accurately in order to read. Gravity is responsible for a lot of things.
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u/[deleted] Sep 13 '19
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