Why does arabic go right to left

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Gift Memberships. Code of Conduct. Gift Certificates. Group Visits. Birthday Parties. Private Events. Special Events. Full Calendar. Public Events. Family Programs. Hebrew is an example of a language read right to left Do some languages have more than one direction? Among the most popular languages read right to left, we can find Arabic, Farsi, Urdu and Hebrew. Some languages can be written in more than one writing system. For example, Traditional Chinese was written in vertical columns which were read from top to bottom.

The first column being on the right side of the page and the last column being on the left. In modern times, however, left-to-right horizontal Chinese has become more popular. Why some languages developed this certain writing style when the majority went left to right?

For example, Western languages are based on Greek and Latin — both of these languages are written from left to right and this is why Western civilizations write from left to right. On the other hand, languages such as Arabic, Hebrew and Persian are based on the Proto-Canaanite alphabet — an ancestor of the Phoenician script that was written from right to left hence they adopted the writing style of right to left.

But when Greek were developed around BCE, other materials were known as well such as dried animal skins parchment and papyrus. When these materials were used, it made sense to write to left to right as right-handed people who were again, the majority could easily smudge the written text if they wrote the other way round.

And to this day, historians have yet to find strong historical evidence for this hypothesis. That is probably due to the cursive nature of Arabic and the fact that it is written right-to-left. However, when someone whose main language is written left-to-right tries to learn writing in Arabic, they often do find the language difficult.

Often they need to hold their writing hand in the opposite direction from what they are used to, which can result in awkward positions for writing.

This has led some people to adopt strategies such as switching between hands and rotating the paper to a more comfortable angle. This is because Arabic is written from right to left. One way to write Arabic with your left hand would be by writing it in reverse so that it reads the same as how you read English or anything else in a Western language. Arabic writers avoid smudging the text by raising their writing hand slightly off the page and holding it still.

They keep their writing hand at the same level while mainly moving the wrist and reducing finger movement. It is almost as if they are drawing and sketching. In some Western countries, English writers occasionally drop their writing hands onto the page, causing smudges and ink stains on their hands. Some writers lay part of their hand down on the page as they write. This is partially the reason for the confusion among some Westerners about Arabic writing and smudges.

It goes in various directions and curves to the right at times. Thus, writing from left-to-right would have an entirely different appearance when reading it than if it were written right to left or up-to-down with no modifications. You can alter the direction of the script without modifying the language by using mirror writing or alternate characters like Hebrew does.

However, this is not common practice.