is hebrew read right to left or left to right

I vaguely remember learning to read and write English.

Maybe you should sign up here at Unilang.Note: This is one of a series of reflections from 4 months leading a study abroad program for 20 college students in Israel, Palestine, Jordan and Egypt Maybe I would like to believe that all other languages derived from Jerusalem as it is also the center of the main religions. Maybe it's because Hebrew is the devine language. And relative to the medium you use to write as mentioned by you. So the direction is more for practical reasons. The Greeks used the left to right while the Semitic people used the right to left. By about 400 BCE the directions became standardized.

The direction the letters faced would indicate the direction it was to be read.

When clay and parchments were used the direction remained the same but was also written from left to right. For this reason it needs to be written from right to left because of the angle of the equipment. A right handed person will hold the chisel with the left hand and the hammer with the right hand. Q: Why is Hebrew written from right to left?Ī: In ancient times writings were done on stone with hammer and chisel. If you hold a piece of text written in Arabic in Saudi Arabia while facing south the text is actually flowing away from Jerusalem And what about places that are located southeast or northeast of Jerusalem, for instance? What languages are written diagonally?Īnd apparently, it seems not only Mr.Z thinks such things. Besides, CoBB the Generous is totally right. So, your assumption is totally wrong to start with. Armenian and Georgian are written left to right, and so are Khmer, Lao, Thai, Hindi, etc. Chinese, Japanese and Korean are also currently written left to right (or vertically). There are many of them east of Jerusalem: Malay/Indonesian, Tagalog, Malagasy, etc.Ĭyrillic is also widely used east of Jerusalem (in Russia and Central Asia) and it's written left to rigth. So, all languages using the Latin alphabet are written left to right, regardless of geographic location. The direction you write a text in a certain language depends on the writing system used, not on the language itself (consider some languages like Uyghur, for instance, that was at some point written in its own alphabet (vertically, top to bottom), the Latin alphabet (left to right) and the Arabic alphabet (right to left)).

Is hebrew read right to left or left to right