Which language is read from right to left. What determines the direction of writing of different peoples: from left to right or from right to left, and so on? Text manipulation
I remember when I first learned as a child that some peoples, for example, Arabs and Jews, write from right to left, I was very surprised. It seemed incomprehensible to me how to write like that. After all, this is terribly inconvenient!
I even tried to write something in the opposite direction, but almost immediately smeared everything with the hand that held the pen.
To my questions, why Jews and Arabs write in this way, no one gave an intelligible answer. Therefore, for a long time I had to be content with the explanation that they just accepted it that way.
Nevertheless, the answer to this riddle haunted me, even when I grew up. It seemed to me that there must be a good reason for writing in the "wrong" direction. And in the end it turned out that this is indeed the case!
It turned out that everything is explained quite simply and logically. The fact is that the Semitic languages, which include both Arabic and Hebrew, are one of the oldest on the planet. They originated at a time when no one could even dream of paper, because it appeared only about two thousand years ago.
Nevertheless, people needed to record information somehow, so they carved letters on stone. And now let's imagine how it will be more convenient for right-handed people, who are 85% on earth, to wield a hammer and chisel? Of course, it is more convenient to do this by holding a chisel in your left hand and knocking on it with a hammer clamped in your right. And in this case it is most convenient to write just from right to left!
By the way, take a closer look at the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Their peculiar configuration indicates that the letters were originally carved on something solid. It is much easier to draw such letters with a chisel than with a pen.
Although since then the stone has ceased to be the only long-term custodian of information, the rules of writing have already been formed, so no one has begun to radically change them.
This is how the riddle about the direction of writing in Hebrew and Arabic is explained so simply. If this was a discovery for you, be sure to share your new knowledge with your friends.
A friend of mine, after visiting Egypt, gave me his dialogue with another Russian tourist during an excursion to the pyramids. People who have been there know what it looks like: Arabs running around with whistles and chasing pyramid climbers away. After a short contemplation of this circus, a fellow traveler asked him "Do you believe that THESE could build such a thing? I - no." The friend agreed with him.
Nevertheless, every time I allow myself hard-hitting remarks about the Arabs, there is a person who reminds me that the positional number system that we use was invented by the Arabs and that is why the numbers are called "Arabic", in contrast to, for example, Roman .
However, these numbers were called Arabic by the Europeans, who borrowed them from the Arabs.
In the 12th century, Al-Khwarizmi's book "On the Indian Account" was translated into Latin and played a very important role in the development of European arithmetic and the introduction of Indo-Arabic numerals. ()
But in Arabic they are called "ar rakm al hindi", which means "Indian account". They are also called Indian in Iran: "Shumare ha ye hendi" in Farsi means "Indian numbers". We cannot know for sure whether the Arabs built the pyramids, but that they had nothing to do with the creation of the so-called "Arab" numbers is a reliable and generally accepted fact.
Indian numerals originated in India no later than the 5th century. At the same time, the concept of zero (shunya) was discovered and formalized, which made it possible to move on to the positional notation of numbers. Arabic and Indo-Arabic numerals are modified forms of Indian numerals adapted to Arabic writing. The Indian writing system was widely popularized by the scientist Al-Khwarizmi, the author of the famous work “Kitab al-jabr wal-l-muqabala”, from the name of which the term “algebra” originated. ()
But let's imagine that we do not have access to the Internet and books, or we do not believe what is written on Wikipedia. The fact that the Arabs simply took advantage of the result can be easily guessed even without knowing about the "Indian numbers". As you know, Arabs write from right to left. But at the same time, the writing of numbers occurs like most white peoples, from left to right. Therefore, if an Arab needs to write a number while writing, he has to retreat to the left, estimating how much space it will take, enter the number from left to right and then return back to writing from right to left. Take a sheet of paper and try to write the text from right to left and the numbers as usual, and you will understand what is meant. If you have to write quickly, then you can hastily underestimate the space needed for the number, and then it will be flattened towards the end.
The inscription in Arabic "Received the amount of 25976000 reais". The last three zeros did not fit in the indent and had to be added in small print on top.
A more educated opponent will immediately say that they say the achievement of the Arabs is not so much in the creation of a system of positional calculus, but in the creation of algebra, the progenitor of which is considered an outstanding Arabic(more on this below) mathematician Al-Khwarizmi. Of course, he is considered the creator of algebra not for the "Arabic" numbers, but for the work mentioned above, the book "Kitab al-jabr wal-muqabala". The word "al-jabr" in the name means "transfer", and the word "wa-l-mukbala" means "bringing". Transferring terms and bringing like ones are one of the main actions in solving equations. By the way, the word "algorithm" comes just from the name of Al-Khwarizmi - the Latin translation of his book began with the words "Dixit Algorizmi" (said Algorizmi).
Muhammad Al-Khwarizmi, (allegedly) Persian mathematician who labored under Arab occupation. The real image, of course, was not preserved, and for some reason the author decided to draw an Arabic beak-shaped nose to the scientist. (photo from here)
Wikipedia tells us that Al-Khwarizmi introduced a certain classification for linear and quadratic equations and described the rules for their solution. Methods for solving quadratic equations are beyond any doubt an achievement for that time. But only they were already known before him
One of the first known derivations of the formula for the roots of a quadratic equation belongs to the Indian scientist Brahmagupta (about 598); Brahmagupta outlined a universal rule for solving a quadratic equation reduced to canonical form ()
"Brahma-sphuta-siddhanta" ("Improved Teachings of Brahma", or "Revision of the Brahma System") is the most famous work of Brahmagupta, dedicated to mathematics and astronomy. The treatise is written in verse and contains only results without evidence. The work consists of 25 chapters (other sources mention 24 chapters and an appendix with tables). Chapter 18, "Atomizer", is directly related to algebra, but since such a term did not yet exist, it is named after the first problem considered in the chapter. ()
Maybe Al-Khwarizmi was not familiar with the works of Brahmagupta and rediscovered ways to solve quadratic equations?
In the second half of the 8th century, when the Baghdad caliph from the Abbasid dynasty Abu-l-Abbas Abd-Allah al-Mamun (712-775) was with an embassy in India, he invited a scholar from Ujjain named Kankah to Baghdad, who taught the Indian system of astronomy at based on the Brahma-sphuta-siddhanta. The caliph ordered a written translation of the book into Arabic, which was carried out by the mathematician and philosopher Ibrahim al-Fazari in 771. The translation, made in the form of tables - zija - with the necessary explanations and recommendations, was called "Great Sindhind". It is known that al-Khwarizmi used this work to write his works on astronomy (“Zij al-Khwarizmi”) and arithmetic (“The Book of the Indian Account”). ()
As you can see, Al-Khwarizmi was well acquainted with the book of Brahmagupta. Yes, he was undoubtedly a great scientist of his time, but by no means the founder of algebra. And if European mathematics received knowledge directly from India, and not through Baghdad, then algebra would now be called some kind of "brahmasphut".
Most likely, Al-Khwarizmi was not an Arab either. Why? Remember, we mentioned that in the Arabic writing system (from right to left), writing numbers from left to right looks very unnatural? Couldn't a great mathematician of his time have guessed that you can write numbers from right to left? Surely he could. Not even to hide the fact of borrowing, but simply for reasons of convenience. But he didn't. Why? Quite possibly intentionally, to leave obvious the fact that this is a foreign system, not an Arab one. It's like a message from the depths of time, they say, look people, the Arabs have nothing to do with numbers. Wikipedia partly confirms our guess.
There is very little information about the life of the scientist. Born presumably in Khiva in 783. In some sources, al-Khwarizmi is called "al-majusi", that is, a magician, from which it is concluded that he came from a family of Zoroastrian priests who later converted to Islam. ()
Zoroastrianism, which Wikipedia mentions, is not an ethnicity, but a religious one. It is clear that if the Al-Khwarizmi family professed Zoroastrianism, then he could not be an Arab. But who then? Zoroastrianism was practiced mainly by Persians, that is, most likely he was a Persian.
An even more sophisticated opponent may say that it was mentioned above that the Baghdad caliph al-Mamun ordered the translation of the book of Brahmagupta, which means he supported the development of science. So that the reader does not have false feelings on this subject, let's look at the history of Khorezm, the birthplace of Al-Khwarizmi.
In 712, Khorezm was conquered by the Arab commander Kuteiba ibn Muslim, who inflicted cruel reprisals on the Khorezmian aristocracy. Kuteiba brought down especially cruel repressions on the scientists of Khorezm. As al-Biruni writes in the Chronicles of Past Generations, “and by all means Kuteyba scattered and destroyed everyone who knew the writing of the Khorezmians, who kept their traditions, all the scientists that were among them, so that all this was covered with darkness and there is no true knowledge about what was known from their history at the time of the coming of Islam to them. ()
This is what the Arab invasion of the enlightened world represented - to cut out all the scientists, and for the few remaining to build a library in Baghdad.
Al-Khwarizmi was supposedly born in 783, that is, about 60 years after the arrival of the Arabs. Imagine that your homeland was captured by a tribe of nomads and your grandfathers tell stories in the evenings about how the invaders massacred your relatives. Apparently, Al-Khwarizmi quietly hated the Muslim invaders, so he left the direction of writing numbers like that of the Hindus. Like, let the Arab animals suffer at least this way, writing texts from right to left, then from left to right.
What do we have in the dry residue? Arabic numerals are not Arabic at all, but Indian, and the pride of the Arab world, allegedly the founder of algebra, the mathematician Al-Khwarizmi, did not create algebra and most likely was not even an Arab.
The authorities of Ecuador have deprived Julian Assange of asylum in the London embassy. The founder of WikiLeaks is detained by the British police, and this has already been called the biggest betrayal in the history of Ecuador. Why is Assange being avenged and what awaits him?
Julian Assange, a programmer and journalist from Australia, became widely known after the website WikiLeaks, founded by him, published secret documents of the US State Department, as well as materials related to military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2010.
But it was quite difficult to find out who the policemen, supporting by the arms, were taking out of the building. Assange grew a beard and did not look at all like the energetic man that he had so far presented in photographs.
According to Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno, Assange's asylum was denied because of his repeated violations of international conventions.
He is expected to remain at a police station in central London until he appears before Westminster Magistrates' Court.
Why the President of Ecuador is accused of betrayal
Former President of Ecuador Rafael Correa called the decision of the current government the biggest betrayal in the history of the country. "What he (Moreno. - Ed.) did is a crime that humanity will never forget," Correa said.
London, on the contrary, thanked Moreno. The British Foreign Office believes that justice has prevailed. The representative of the Russian diplomatic department, Maria Zakharova, has a different opinion. "The hand of 'democracy' is squeezing the throat of freedom," she said. The Kremlin expressed the hope that the rights of the arrested person would be respected.
Ecuador harbored Assange because the former president was center-left, critical of U.S. policy, and welcomed WikiLeaks' release of classified documents on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even before the Internet activist needed asylum, he managed to get to know Correa personally: he interviewed him for the Russia Today channel.
However, in 2017, the government in Ecuador changed, the country headed for rapprochement with the United States. The new president called Assange "a stone in the shoe" and immediately made it clear that his stay on the territory of the embassy would not be delayed.
According to Correa, the moment of truth came at the end of June last year, when US Vice President Michael Pence arrived in Ecuador on a visit. Then everything was decided. “You can be sure: Lenin is just a hypocrite. He has already agreed with the Americans about the fate of Assange. And now he is trying to make us swallow the pill, saying that Ecuador allegedly continues the dialogue,” Correa said in an interview with Russia Today.
How Assange made new enemies
The day before his arrest, WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristin Hrafnsson said that Assange was under total surveillance. "WikiLeaks uncovered a massive spy operation against Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy," he said. According to him, cameras and voice recorders were placed around Assange, and the information received was transmitted to the administration of Donald Trump.
Hrafnsson specified that Assange was going to be expelled from the embassy a week earlier. This did not happen only because WikiLeaks made this information public. A high-ranking source told the portal about the plans of the Ecuadorian authorities, but the head of the Ecuadorian Foreign Ministry, Jose Valencia, denied the rumors.
Assange's expulsion was preceded by a corruption scandal involving Moreno. In February, WikiLeaks published the INA Papers package, which traced the operations of the offshore company INA Investment, founded by the brother of the Ecuadorian leader. In Quito, they said that this was a plot by Assange with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and former head of Ecuador Rafael Correa to overthrow Moreno.
In early April, Moreno complained about Assange's behavior in Ecuador's London mission. “We have to protect the life of Mr. Assange, but he has already crossed all the lines in terms of violating the agreement that we came to with him,” the president said. “This does not mean that he cannot speak freely, but he cannot lie and hack ". At the same time, back in February last year, it became known that Assange at the embassy was deprived of the opportunity to interact with the outside world, in particular, he was turned off access to the Internet.
Why Sweden stopped persecuting Assange
At the end of last year, Western media, citing sources, reported that Assange would be charged in the United States. This was never officially confirmed, but it was precisely because of Washington's position that Assange had to take refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy six years ago.
Sweden, in May 2017, stopped investigating two cases of rape in which the founder of the portal was accused. Assange demanded compensation from the country's government for legal costs in the amount of 900,000 euros.
Earlier, in 2015, Swedish prosecutors also dropped three charges against him due to the statute of limitations.
Where did the rape investigation lead?
Assange arrived in Sweden in the summer of 2010, hoping to get protection from US authorities. But he was under investigation for rape. In November 2010, a warrant for his arrest was issued in Stockholm, and Assange was put on the international wanted list. He was detained in London, but was soon released on bail of 240 thousand pounds.
In February 2011, a British court ruled to extradite Assange to Sweden, followed by a series of successful appeals for the founder of WikiLeaks.
The British authorities placed him under house arrest before deciding to extradite him to Sweden. Breaking his promise to the authorities, Assange asked for asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy, which was granted to him. Since then, the UK has had its own grievances against the founder of WikiLeaks.
What's next for Assange?
The man was re-arrested following a U.S. extradition request for publishing classified documents, police said. At the same time, Deputy Foreign Minister Alan Duncan said that Assange would not be sent to the United States if he faced the death penalty there.
In the UK, Assange is likely to appear in court on the afternoon of 11 April. This is stated on the WikiLeaks Twitter page. It is likely that the British authorities will seek a maximum sentence of 12 months, the man's mother said, citing his lawyer.
At the same time, the Swedish prosecutor's office is considering reopening the investigation into the rape allegation. Lawyer Elizabeth Massey Fritz, who represented the interests of the victim, will seek this.
In the beginning was the word
About 4,000 years ago, people began to need to write, i.e. convey information to other people not by the spoken word, but by the written word. The first such attempts were pictograms, i.e. drawings. The writers of those times must have been very proud of themselves, but it is clear to us that their ability to describe qualities and emotions was meager.
drawing 01
The development of pictograms were hieroglyphs. In addition to drawings of objects, images appeared that carried descriptive information. Stable concepts were assigned to hieroglyphs, the number of such hieroglyphs grew. The inscriptions now consisted of hieroglyphs and pictograms.
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Disadvantages of this letter:
1. There are over 500,000 words in any modern language. The need to memorize thousands of hieroglyphs is a task beyond the strength of the majority. The profession of a scribe / reader was respected and required many years of study, the common people were completely deprived of such an opportunity.
2. Each hieroglyph has meaning only within a certain group of people who have agreed on the meaning of this hieroglyph. A person not from this group will not understand this character, so the characters are not suitable for the exchange of information between groups of people.
They wrote in hieroglyphs in all directions, but the prevailing directions were from right to left and from top to bottom. The reason for this is simple: it is so convenient for the right-hander, who writes on the stone with a chisel in his left hand and a hammer in his right.
What I hear is what I write
In the middle of the 17th century. before. AD the family of the forefather Jacob migrates from Canaan (Canaan) to Egypt. Jews take an active part in the economic and trading activities- keeping records with hieroglyphs and pictograms was absolutely not suitable for solving such problems. Icons were invented with which it was possible to RECORD THE SOUNDS PRODUCED BY A HUMAN. This is how the first phonetic alphabet appeared.
At first, each character of this alphabet consisted of a combination of a consonant and a vowel, i.e. was an open syllable. Here is one version of the list of signs (not all are still understood):
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There are 88 characters in this list. In fact, their number varies from 50 to 100 at different stages, in different places and by different researchers. As in modern times in almost all languages, each consonant could be combined with one of the 5 vowels to form an open syllable, for example:
Pa, Po, Pu, Pi, Pe.
In the photo we see an inscription made in the 16th century. BC. It was found in Egypt in the gorge of El-Khol (sand gorge) - this is the oldest found inscription written in the phonetic alphabet. This form of writing is today called linear writing, because, unlike previous forms of writing with hieroglyphs in all directions, it was written in a horizontal line.
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El-Hol Gorge is located in Egypt about 500 km. upstream of the Nile River from the city of Cairo in the area of Jewish settlement in Egypt in the 16th century. BC.
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Linear syllabic writing was improved during the 16th-14th centuries. BC. In the 13th century BC. a revolutionary leap took place in the development of this letter - more on that below.
After the overthrow in 1550 BC. XVI dynasty of the Hyksos pharaohs (hyksos, hycsos, Ὑκσώς, היקסוס) the attitude of the authorities and the local population towards the Jews became hostile (read the article ""). The emigration of Jews from Egypt to the regions of the Aegean, Crete, Cyprus, Sicily and other shores of the Mediterranean began.
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Jews settled in these areas and, naturally, brought there a linear syllabary. Many documents written in versions of this letter have been found in excavations from the Minoan and Mycenaean periods.
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In whatever language we write, the removal of vowels from words in most cases does not lead to misunderstanding of the text, but significantly shortens it. Let's try to write this sentence without vowels, leaving only vowels at the beginning and end of words and the vowel "o".
Let's try to use this proposition without glans bkv, leave the vowel only at the beginning and at the end of words and say "o". Ponchlu is a little strange, but if you try it, it's quite understandable.
Jews have been writing and reading this way for more than 3,000 years. The structure of Hebrew, in which almost all the roots of words consist of 3 consonants, greatly facilitates the task of understanding what is written. This way of writing saves time, paper, ink and develops variant thinking.
Having removed all unnecessary signs, the Jews by the end of the 13th century. BC, i.e. by the time the Exodus from Egypt began, they created an alphabet consisting of 22 letters. Here he is:
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Dear reader! Stop and think!!! Before your eyes the first phonetic alphabet, consisting of 22 letters - the greatest invention in human history. The invention of the wheel, gunpowder, penicillin and the internet are nothing compared to it. This is a universal means of disseminating information among people around the world. Without it, mankind would have practically stopped in its development 3,200 years ago.
This alphabet had the following revolutionary advantages:
1. he allowed to record ANY combination of sounds INDEPENDENTLY from the language of the speaker and did not even require an understanding of the meaning of what was said for this.
2. it was available to EVERYONE for study in a matter of days, i.e. opened the gates to literacy for the common people.
Exporting the alphabet to Europe
In 1194 - 1154. BC. the Jews make the Exodus - they leave Egypt and settle in Canaan.
In the next 450 years, immortal works were written in Hebrew using this alphabet, such as the Torah, the Psalms of King David, the Song of Songs and a great many others. What was the population of Europe doing while the Jews were learning to read and write, building Jerusalem and arguing about the foundations of morality laid down in the 10 commandments?
The Europeans of those times roamed the forests in skins, obtained food by gathering and primitive hunting, lived in caves, worshiped stones and lightning. It would continue like this, BUT...
In 732 BC Assyrian king Tiglath Pilaser III began his expansion into Canaan. The war lasted 31 years. During this period, the masses of the inhabitants of the kingdom of Israel left Canaan and, fleeing, settled on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea.
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The total number of refugees was in the millions (read the article ""). A significant part of them settled on the islands and on the coast of the Aegean Sea. Thus ended the dark ages of Greece.
The settlers brought to the Aegean basin, among other things, the alphabet. Thus began the history of European writing.
Development of writing technologies
In the 7th - 5th centuries. BC. there was no paper. They wrote on clay, on papyrus, on the skin of animals.
The most convenient and promising was writing on specially treated animal skin. Leather processing technology has survived to this day. It is used to make a claf, on which the prayer "Hear, Israel" is written and embedded in a mezuzah. The same technology was used and is being used to make Torah scrolls.
The larger the piece of leather, the more information could be written on it and, therefore, the greater its value.
Reading from large pieces of leather had the drawback of the awkward need to move your head around while going from line to line. To overcome this inconvenience in the 6th - 5th centuries. BC. a tendency appeared and developed to change the direction of writing from line to line - a line from right to left, the next term from left to right, etc., for example:
figure 10
It is unusual for us, but after a minimum training it is quite acceptable.