Why do we write English, etc. from left to right and Arabic etc. from right to left?

Answer 1

The earliest alphabetic writing was right-to-left (RTL). When the Greeks adopted the alphabet from the Phoenicians, they also wrote RTL. When the Etruscans adopted the alphabet from the West Greeks a little later, they kept RTL. When the Romans adopted the alphabet from the Etruscans, they also kept RTL. But around the time that the Romans got the alphabet, the Greeks were switching from RTL to left-to-right (LTR). LTR then began to spread throughout the part of the world where Greeks were the main trading nation, mainly the north shore of the Mediterranean. So the Romans switched to LTR to match the Greek practice. So all languages that trace their writing tradition to the Romans or Greeks (such as all of Europe and lands that Europeans colonized) now use LTR.

The big question is why the Greeks switched from RTL to LTR. We don't really have a very good answer to that question. The legend is that the Greeks did not like their sleeves dragging in the ink as a right-handed person wrote from RTL, so they switched to LTR. But other RTL writers had the same problem and they never switched. Syriac writers, for example, simply turned the piece of paper sideways to write in order to keep their sleeves out of the ink. That is why traditional Mongolian is written top-to-bottom LTR--they simply write Syriac letters the way Syriac priests wrote Syriac, but then don't turn it sideways to read it RTL.

There was a period of time in Greek writing when they switched from RTL to a system called boustrophedon "ox writing". The top line was written RTL, then the next line was written LTR, then the next line RTL, etc. (The name refers to the way you plow a field with an ox.) But this type of writing is quite impractical. Perhaps it was just a random selection of one out of two directions in boustrophedon that led to LTR over RTL among the Greeks.

Answer 2

because arabic's letters is different form english's letter
u cant start the arabic's letter from the left.

Answer 3

it is just a preference that was adopted in each writing system... Hebrew is also spelled from right to left and Japanase is spelled from top to bottom, right to left--- everything is just preference. I like Korean, and how they use a square's four corners to spell their syllables

Answer 4

Hmm I'm actually not sure myself but i think it's got something to do with the pronunciation..

Answer 5

the same reason that u write chinese vertically

Answer 6

thats a good question, i would also like to know why.