Palindrome: Encyclopedia II - Palindrome - History

Palindrome - History

According to Bill Bryson's Mother Tongue: English & How It Got That Way (p. 227): "Palindromes … are at least 2,000 years old". The ancient Greeks often inscribed the palindrome "ΝΙΨΟΝΑΝΟΜΗΜΑΤΑΜΗΜΟΝΑΝΟΨΙΝ" on fountains; in mixed case with modern accents and divided into words this reads "Νίψον ανομήματα μη μόναν όψιν" ("Nipson anomēmata mē monan opsin"), meaning "Wash the sin as well as the face" (ps, ψ, is the single Greek letter psi).

The Romans enjoyed palindromes too, as demonstrated by "In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni" ("We enter the circle at night and are consumed by fire"), which was said to describe the behavior of moths. The Latin palindrome "Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas" is remarkable for the fact that it also reproduces itself if one forms a word from the first letters, then the second letters and so forth. Hence it can be arranged into a word square that reads in four different ways: horizontally or vertically from top left to bottom right; and horizontally or vertically from bottom right to top left.

  S A T O R
  A R E P O
  T E N E T
  O P E R A
  R O T A S

Translation is problematic as the sentence is grammatically flawed; for further discussion, see separate article.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki