Why did the ancients write from right to left?

This is a habit from ancient times to the present, and it may also be because the bamboo sticks of the ancients were rolled up like that, so they will be written from right to left, which is also convenient when reading in this way.

Modern people write from left to right, why did the ancients write from top to bottom, from right to left?

<> writing, now our writing habits are from left to right, from top to bottom. But in ancient times, it was not written like this, and the ancients wrote from right to left, which we can get confirmation from historical materials and TV dramas.

They have this habit of writing, and I think it is due to two reasons:

The reading habits and writing habits of the ancients

In the early days, before there was paper, people wrote on bamboo slips, and most of the tools were brushes. We can imagine that when the ancients took out the bamboo slips, they first opened the first piece of the bamboo slips with their right hand, and then slid the bamboo slips left and right, reading them one by one. Obviously, writing from right to left is easier to read.

In the same way, when it comes to writing, since humans generally write with their right hand, they play an unshakable position. The bamboo slips are threaded together, so when the right hand holds the brush to write, the left and right sides open the bamboo slips one by one, the process will be very natural, and the bamboo slips after writing will be dried in turn.

In ancient times, the right was honored

Since the emergence of civilization, people have gradually formed the ideological concept of respecting the right and precious. The specific reflection is in people's little by little lives, such as the promotion of officials, which is generally called right migration, and depreciation is called left migration; When the guests come, when they are more honorable, they should leave the seats on the right vacant for them to sit; In addition, since ancient times, there has been a "upper hall and lower kitchen", reflecting the position of culture in people's lives. In the same way in the process of writing, it is the same reason, it is under the influence of this kind of thinking that the habit of writing from right to left is formed.

The ancients wrote from right to left for the following reasons:

1. Respect the right.

The Chinese characters from top to bottom, from right to left, also reflect the ancients' idea of respect and inferiority, for example, the right prime minister is greater than the left prime minister, and the right general is greater than the left general. "Moving to the left" represents the demotion of officials; "Unsurpassed" means that there is no exceedance. These all reflect the ancients' idea of respect and inferiority, that is, the right is greater than the left, which is also one of the reasons why Chinese characters are written from right to left.

2. Easy to read.

Imagine yourself holding a bamboo slip, how will you spread out the right hand stall? Or is it a left-handed stall? It doesn't seem to matter too much, because how you spread it depends on how the person who rolls it rolls, taking this into account, so the person who rolls the bamboo slips can only roll it from right to left, so that the bamboo slips written from right to left can also be seen little by little without spreading them out.

3. It is related to the mechanism of human beings.

The left brain of the person is responsible for the logic of language, and the brain and the limbs are crossed, so most people are more comfortable writing with their right hand, so when writing on the bamboo slips, you must hold the slip with your left hand, write with your right hand, and take it to the left side to dry after writing.

Later, because of custom, paper did not change immediately, but in 1954, in order to comply with international practice, it was officially stipulated to write from left to right.

Legends about the order of writing:

In Journey to the West, Master Xuanzang heard a story passed down by word of mouth on the way to learn scriptures, and the emergence of world writing is related to the three sages. The first is the Pillu, who is the originator of the Murug script and has a habit of writing from left to right. The second is the Indian Brahma master, who created the Sanskrit script and wrote it from right to left.

The third is Cangjie, who created broad and profound Chinese characters, written from top to bottom.

Categories: Culture Arts >> Literature >>**.

Problem description: I use a brush again, so it's not easy to get my hands dirty?

Analysis: The writing habit of the ancients is from right to left, and the essence is from west to east, which is the same as the essence of today, and this is the direction of the earth's rotation. This style of writing originated from gossip and later became a habit.

Anyone who knows a little about the Book of Changes knows that the directions in the Bagua are: left, east, right, west, up, south, down, north, just the opposite of the directions of modern maps. The word "heaven and south, earth and north" in the idiom is ** here, because the upper is the sky is the south, and the lower is the earth is the north.

Why is there a reverse direction? The reason for this is that the former is looking at the sky from the ground, and it is looking at the sky from the ground in China, so it is an upward perspective. The latter is "looking at heaven and earth", which is a kind of overlooking angle.

How did the ancients come to that definition? Let's suppose there was an ancient man standing on the ground in China, and he spread a piece of paper on the ground, facing south and facing north, left east and right west. Then write the direction on the paper on the ground in front of and behind you, and then take this piece of paper to see, which is just in line with the direction on the Bagua map.

If this ancient man is allowed to turn his body to look at the earth at 180 degrees, he will face north and back to south, left west and right east, which is also consistent with the map orientation, so there is no difference between the two in essence.

If we turn the horizontal axis of the coordinate system by 180°, it will conform to the writing habits of the ancients, and at the same time make it conform to the direction of the eight trigrams. If we build a model based on the definition of "left is yang, right is yin, upper is yang, and lower is yin", we will get a surprisingly interesting result: we find that the ancients are in line with both natural and mathematical principles.

Let's take a look at the diagram above, which combines the coordinates in mathematics with the directions of the eight trigrams. 1. In nature, the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, so the east is yang and the west is yin; The climate in the south is hot, fire is yang, and the climate in the north is cold, and water is yin; Therefore, the southeast is the yang sun in the yang, and the northwest is the yin and the yin in the yin; The northeast is the yin of the yang for the less yin, and the southwest is the yang of the yin for the less yang.

2. In the definition of the ancients, the left is yang, the right is yin, the upper is yang, and the lower is yin, so the yang in the upper left is the sun, the yin in the lower right is the taiyin, the lower left is the yin in the yang, and the upper right is the yang in the yin.

3. If we look at the direction of the arrows of the horizontal axis and the vertical axis in the coordinates, we can see that the upper left quadrant is positive, the lower right is negative and negative, the lower left is positive and negative, and the upper right is negative positive. Suppose the positive is yang and the negative is yin, that is, the upper left is yang yang (sun), the lower right is yin yin (taiyin), the lower left is yang yin (less yin), and the upper right is yin and yang (less yang). This is in line with both the reality of nature and the nature of mathematics, and the three are consistent.

I draw the three attributes into the same diagram and call it the "Nature, Mathematics, and Bagua Orientation Triad" diagram.

I have said too much nonsense, in short, many habits of the ancients came from gossip, and it cannot be simply thought that it is caused by hygiene habits.

Because most people write with their right hands, and ancient people write on bamboo slips, writing from right to left will make the writing process very natural, and the bamboo slips will also be slowly dried, so that the sleeves will not touch the words written.

This has a lot to do with the ancient writing tools, which used brushes, all written vertically, from right to left, which is more convenient for writing habits.

The ancient people took the right as the top, and felt that the position on the right was more noble, and they liked to start from the right side of everything, thinking that it was more convenient, and you felt that it was more beautiful.

As we all know, we find that the characters in ancient books were written in order from top to bottom, right to left. I've always wondered, why is that? In fact, the reason is very simple, there was no paper in the past, people were writing with a brush on bamboo slips, and the average person wrote with the right hand, which was more convenient from right to left, and it was more convenient to read.

Therefore, there are a lot of similar incomprehensible things, and if you trace its historical causes, it feels very simple.

Modern writing order

The order in which we write today, when we have taken pen and paper, is written horizontally from top to bottom and from left to right, which is very convenient to write and easy to read. This kind of writing order habit was not formed immediately, but also gradually evolved after many years of historical changes, and the uncomfortable writing habits of the past were slowly abandoned, and gradually evolved into today's comfortable and smooth writing habits, which began after the Xinhai Revolution. <>

Ancient right-to-left writing, why is that?

Ancient people were accustomed to writing from right to left, to be precise, it was not that the ancients were used to writing from right to left, but because of the restrictions of the conditions at the time, because Cai Lun was only later improved to make paper. At that time, the ancients used bamboo slips to write with a brush, and the right hand was used to write, and the right hand was used to turn the bamboo slips, and the bamboo slips that were written first were dried first, so they put away the dried bamboo slips first, and in the long run, they developed a writing order from right to left. Moreover, for the ancients, starting from the right also indicates the ancients' idea of dignity and inferiority.

All habits are for a reason

From the ancient vertical writing habits from top to bottom, from right to left, to the horizontal writing habits from top to bottom and from left to right that we use today, it has undergone major changes in history, and the invention of papermaking has gradually changed people's long-term writing habits. <>

Because ancient people were used to writing from right to left, and it also conformed to the reading habits of ancient people, ancient people wrote from right to left.

It is very convenient to write like this, and after the passage of time, there are many habits that are different from those of the ancients.

Mainly because in ancient times, the right was respected, so the writing would also be written from right to left.

Because the ancients respected the right, and this is also a habit of their writing, and they have developed such a reading habit from the past to the present, so they will do this.

Because the ancients respected the right, and this has a lot to do with the characteristics of Chinese characters, it was originally written on bamboo slips, so that it is easy to read.