(no subject)
I heard something thought-provoking today.
The director of the Sherwin-Miller museum of Jewish Culture (Tulsa, Ok) claimed during my class' tour that the earliest languages were written right to left because most people are right-handed, so it's easier to use a chisel on stone going right-to-left rather than left-to-right. (So, were pre-historic writers all right-handed?)
I have a hard time believing this, since cuneiform was made using reeds, not chisels. Besides, wasn't most early writing like hieroglyphics and Harappan script on clay tablets, with characters incised into them?
The director of the Sherwin-Miller museum of Jewish Culture (Tulsa, Ok) claimed during my class' tour that the earliest languages were written right to left because most people are right-handed, so it's easier to use a chisel on stone going right-to-left rather than left-to-right. (So, were pre-historic writers all right-handed?)
I have a hard time believing this, since cuneiform was made using reeds, not chisels. Besides, wasn't most early writing like hieroglyphics and Harappan script on clay tablets, with characters incised into them?