Why do the features and direction of writing differ among European, Near and Far Eastern peoples? This question has been of interest to scientists and researchers since ancient times. Thus, Aristotle gave his own interpretation of the differences in the writing of texts by the Japanese, Arabs, Jews and all other peoples. According to his cosmic theory, writing and its direction among different peoples is subject to "the course and movement of the second heaven, the totality of seven planets"; Hindus, Kafans, Chinese, Japanese write from top to bottom, which corresponds to "the establishment of nature, according to which people have a head up and feet down," Egyptians, Punyans, Carthaginians, Arabs, Saracens, Turks, Moors, Persians, write from right to left, following thus "the course and daily movement of the first heaven, which, according to the great Aristotle, is very perfect, approaching unity."
Another point of view, put forward by naturalists of the Renaissance, who tried to explain the phenomena not only from a divine, but also from a scientific, descriptive point of view - the whole point is in the predominance of left-handed individuals in the population. For example, among Jews and Arabs, left-handedness is not only not uncommon, but in some periods it is the prevailing phenomenon in society. Therefore, their writing is different from the European one, they write from right to left. At the same time, some of these scientists, for example, Aldrovandi, tried to connect not only natural features, but also social, social factors and details of activities. In particular, he noted that left-handed warriors are an inconvenient phenomenon for the army, where the tools and weapons that were made (or captured from the enemy) were “sharpened” for right-handed warriors. And left-handers were sent to paperwork - hence the writing from right to left.
Another theory, described in the "General Historical Dictionary" by K. Dure, connects the Arabic-Jewish direction of writing with the fact that their writing was originally displayed with a hammer and chisel. In this case, it is more convenient to hold the "pen" in the left hand, hence the tracing of letters and symbols from right to left.
As for the Japanese writing - it came from China, from where the first hieroglyphs and the way they were written were taken - on tablets, which were originally narrow sheep's shoulder blades in China. For convenience and clarity, symbols began to be arranged vertically, therefore, the text displayed with their help was much more convenient to write from top to bottom, says S. Kazuaki in his work "Japanese writing from the beginnings to the present day." Today, in accordance with the writing reforms of 1946 and 1951, most of the texts are written by the Japanese in European, from left to right.
