Why does everthing have to be left to right and not right to left? like reading and writing.?

Question

Who decided that then?

Answer 1

It's just convention. There are some languages, such as Arabic, which are written right to left. Chinese is written top to bottom. These traditions evolved over many hundreds of years, and were likely influenced by a great variety of factors. When it really comes down to it, though, the left-to-right thing is arbitrary and there is no good reason why it shouldn't be the other way around.

Answer 2

There is a writing practice in Western writing systems known as boustrophedon, literally 'to plough in turning oxen' which originated in Greece. This practice was designed to speed up writing primarilly in Greek, but I have used it myself in English note-taking, It was used mostly in administrative documents and some pottery.
It works by the person writing one sentence left to right for a line. Then instead of picking up the pen and returning to the lefthand side again, the writing is continued on the righthand side underneath, in mirror writing, each character reversed. The time is saved by the person not having to return to theleft hand side each time they came to the other side of the page.
This pracice was mainly practiced in Attica and Corinth in the 5th century BC, and died out with the introduction of Latin as the main administrative language, and the collapse of the Greek pottery industry. It was then forgotten about until recently, when thousands of boustrophedon pottery fragments were found at a site near Athens.
Several languages run from right to left, including Hebrew, Arabic, some hieroglyphic writings, some Oriental languages and also some Japanese documents, which start in the top right corner and continue down and across to the left in columns. This is typical in 'unflipped' anime, where the book opens from the left and is read, in a Western view, 'backwards'.

Answer 3

As a left hander, I wish English was written right to left, then my hand would not cover my writing as I am doing it. They say this is the reason a lot of left handers hold their pens funny.

So I would guess that most languages are written left to right because most early scribes were right handed like most people are today.

Answer 4

My mother once said I should have been an Arab or Israeli because I always start reading a magazine from the back forward. And I'm not left-handed. Who knows who's write?
By the way da Vinci wrote mirror-writing - not the same thing.

Answer 5

Everything isn't left to right, is it? Anyway reading and writing is probably because it is the natural order of things. Right to left seems backwards. Left to right is progressive and forward, upwards and positive. Think about it.

All the best,
Fay

Answer 6

It is in Engliah that we read and write from left to right, and it was decided by those people that originally put words to paper. However, not every language uses these mechanics. Hebrew is right to left, and I believe that Chinese is as well.

Peace.

Answer 7

The natural action of a RIGHT handed person is to 'drag' the pen, pencil or stylus from LEFT to RIGHT. The natural sweep of the arm.

Left handers have to push but since they are in the minority they just have to grin and bear it.

Arabic is written RIGHT to LEFT and it can only be concluded it originated from a tribe of mainly LEFT handed people.

Answer 8

I believe Arabic is written the other way around, and Chinese top to bottom .
There is an advantage for right handed folk with 'our' system,though, in that ,you can still read what you have written as you continue to write, and in days of yore ,you'd be less likely to smudge the ink.

Answer 9

When Japanese is written in a vertical writing format, we read it from top to bottom and right to left. We also have a horizontal writing format which is identical to English. Characters are arranged in rows which are read from left to right, with successive rows going downwards.

Answer 10

I am left handed, I always flick through a book backwards, and when I write in ink left to right, I smudge what I write as I go.
But left handed people always give nice answers to polite questions.