Lefty handwriting...

[Externet]

Western writing is from left to right, and using the right hand is more efficient or 'proper'

Do languages written from right to left mean to a certain extent, that the eastern people is mostly left-handed ? Or pushed to be left -handed ?

When my daughter started using pencils in preschool, she tended to be left handed. Which I pushed and encouraged to use the right hand. And worked since.

Later learned my parents did the same to me.

[CharonY]

Do you mean semitic with "eastern people"? To my knowledge these scripts (including Arabic, Hebrew, Farsi, Urdu etc.) are the only right-to-left scripts currently in use (though I may have missed some). If you think about further to the East (e.g. China or Japan) the scripts are traditionally top-down (but can be read in any direction, which some poems utilize).

I do not think that the direction can be directly linked to handedness either way, considering that many scripts were developed before paper. I.e. the hypothesis that right-left writing may cause smearing may not have a historic foundation.

Phoenician script was written right to left which was adapted by the ancient Greeks, but boustrophedon (direction change after a line) was increasingly used before the Hellenistic area. From the 5th century onward left-to-right dominated. Considering that there is no evidence that handedness changed significantly it does not seem to be associated with it.

 

There have been suggestions in the 80s that it may be due to the change of languages (specifically development of vocalic scripts) could make it easier to read from left-to-right. But since then there have been quite some changes in the understanding of the neurophysiology of reading and I am not sure whether the hypothesis still stands.

Edited March 23, 2016 by CharonY

[fiveworlds]

Was the handed thing not to do with staircases in castles though? Children were taught to be more proficient with their right hand because when attacking a castle the staircases were built in such a fashion as to make attacking easier for right handed people.

[StringJunky]

..., but boustrophedon (direction change after a line) was increasingly used before the Hellenistic area.

Interesting, never heard of that before. Had to check it out:

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boustrophedon

[CharonY]

Was the handed thing not to do with staircases in castles though? Children were taught to be more proficient with their right hand because when attacking a castle the staircases were built in such a fashion as to make attacking easier for right handed people.

 

I think you have it the wrong way around. Some staircases were built that way to inhibit right-handed attackers. Obviously, left-handed attackers had an advantage in this situation (and the reverse for defenders). If most people were left-handed (or evenly distributed) the reverse would be the case.

[Lyudmilascience]

I was born in a country that retaught their citizens to right with their right hand and they still do that today schools during my time didn't even accept students that wrote with their left hand everyone had to be retrained. I lived there until I turned seven and then came to the us. I was still right handed but at one point I injured my right hand and had to use my left and I can still feel that even though i write with both hands equally well and I do not feel a difference. I sometimes reach with my left hand to grab something and I think that I grab things with my left hand more often because I was born left handed. i think it relates to how your brain is wired rather then how you the writing was developed. and i think it is impossible to become fully opposite handed, I think that people will still have tendencies to do things with the hand they were born with . my parents kept on taking the pencil out of my left hand when i started scribbling and drawing as a toddler I was under close watch and still have a tenancy to use my left hand. they have a study thaty shows that left handedness is low in some countries throughout history and concludes that its mainly the cause of genetics.

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/medical-education/publications/reprints2009/2009-History_GeographyOfHumanHandedness.pdf