====== ARROW'D! ======

I've mentioned before that yinrih are not very good at throwing things, and they certainly never invented the bow and arrow, with tail slings being the go-to primitive projectile weapon. That means the use of arrows as directional markers never developed. Yinrih also don't point with their paws, they point their muzzle in the desired direction.



The preferred direction marker is therefor a caricature of a yinrih's head. In addition to indicating directions parallel to the plane of the writing surface, there are conventions for indicating perpendicular directions. On a wall that means straight ahead and behind, and on a flat surface it means up and down. Human signage generally uses an upward pointing arrow to mean "ahead", but it would literally mean "above" or overhead". For "left","right", "up", and "down" this ends up looking a lot like an arrowhead, or rather a turned V. The tip is usually filled in to represent a rhinarium. "Forward" is a pair of inverted V's representing the profile of a yinrih's ears as seen from behind. "Behind" is a semicircle or U shape with a filled circle in the middle, representing a yinrih's face seen straight on.



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