How many more seemingly commonplace questions that are literally constantly before our eyes. However, we never tried to find answers to them because we did not notice this question - we got used to it. But often such questions hide interesting, deep and sometimes just elegant answers.
Have you ever wondered why the Hebrew and Arabic scripts have one distinct feature, namely, right-to-left writing? It turns out there is a very practical explanation for this.
The Semitic languages, which include both Arabic and Hebrew, are among the oldest on the planet. They originated at a time when no one could even dream of paper, because it appeared only about two thousand years ago. Hebrew and Arabic writing arose from ancient Babylonian cuneiform writing, and the Western writing tradition from ancient Egyptian papyrus writing.
To explain clearly what is the difference between them, let's turn on the imagination. Imagine that there is papyrus in front of you, and you have a stylus (a thin knife) in your hands. We cut hieroglyphs with our right hand (85% of people are right-handed). At the same time, what is written to the right of us is closed, but what is on the left is perfectly visible. The question arises: how is it more convenient for you to write? Of course, from left to right, since it is so convenient to see what has already been written.
Now take a stone, a hammer and a chisel in your hands. A hammer in the right hand (85%), a chisel in the left. Let's start carving cuneiform hieroglyphs. The left hand with a chisel reliably covers what is written on the left, but what is on the right is clearly visible to us. How is it more convenient for us to write? In this case - from right to left.
By the way, if you take a closer look at the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, you will notice that their peculiar configuration indicates that the letters were originally carved on something solid. These letters are much easier to represent with a chisel than with a pen.
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Of course, since then, the stone has ceased to be the only durable custodian of information, but the rules of writing have already been formed, so it was decided not to change the rules of writing in a radical way.
Do you agree with this version?
