I was standing at the refrigerator looking at the ketchup bottle, when suddenly I thought, "Ha! I bet the Etruscan 'K' is backwards! That would be awesome!". And I checked, and it was. And it was awesome
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What made you think that it would be backwards in the first place? Based on what you've said, one orientation is clearly preferable to the other from a Roman perspective - but it didn't sound as if the converse would necessarily be true from an Etruscan perspective.
The Greek kappa has the same orientation as the Roman k - what's the chronology like there?
I remembered the impression that a number of Etruscan letters were reversed respective to their Roman descendants. Since I had just realized why the Roman 'K' must face the direction it does, I guessed that 'K' might be one of the reversed letters.
The modern Greek Kappa is indeed in the same orientation as the Roman. But the early Greek Kappa, like the Phoenician and the Etruscan, faces the other way.
I don't know much about the development of Greek after the history of the Roman alphabet breaks away from it in the 8th century BCE, and my sources don't say anything about when the Kappa turned around. But looking at some inscriptions, I see a Modern facing Kappa in Ephesus in the 6th Century BCE.
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The Greek kappa has the same orientation as the Roman k - what's the chronology like there?
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The modern Greek Kappa is indeed in the same orientation as the Roman. But the early Greek Kappa, like the Phoenician and the Etruscan, faces the other way.
I don't know much about the development of Greek after the history of the Roman alphabet breaks away from it in the 8th century BCE, and my sources don't say anything about when the Kappa turned around. But looking at some inscriptions, I see a Modern facing Kappa in Ephesus in the 6th Century BCE.
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