We all know that
The ancients wrote,
It's all from top to bottom, from right to left,
It's the opposite of what we have today from left to right.
Sometimes it's strange,
Did the ancients write,
Not afraid to cover up the words that have been written with the right hand,
Or do you touch the undried ink on your right wrist or sleeve?
Actually, it won't.
Because when writing with a brush, you have to lift your wrist,
Even use your left hand to control the right sleeve.
But even so,
Feelings can still cause great inconvenience,
But why has it been so persistent for thousands of years,
What is the reason for this?
one
The earliest habit of writing on bamboo jane
The reason why the ancients wrote vertically is because before the invention of papermaking, the ancients wrote on bamboo and wood.
Bamboo wood is a narrow bamboo wood piece, naturally have to write all the way down, a single piece is written, and then tied up with a rope to roll into a book bound.
The word "book" is the pictographic character of Jian Mu, and opening the volume is naturally the right hand holding the end, and the left hand is convenient to unfold.
Therefore, writing is from top to bottom, from right to left.
two
The characteristics of Chinese characters and people's writing habits
From the perspective of the characteristics of Chinese characters and people's physiological habits, the stroke order of a word is naturally convenient from top to bottom and from left to right.
If you write horizontally from right to left, when writing the left half, the brush is bound to block the right half of the glyph, which is not convenient for arranging the structure, affecting the beauty of the characters.
The last stroke of each Chinese character is in the middle or lower right, and the last stroke of the previous word is followed by the beginning of the next word, and the vertical writing is more convenient for the coherence of the stroke than the horizontal writing.
three
The ancients respected the right
The top-down, right-to-left writing of Chinese characters also reflects the ancient people's idea of dignity and inferiority.
In ancient times, the lord was the king, the parents; Subordinates are subjects, children. The right is large, the left is small, and "unsurpassed" means that there is no more than that.
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It has to do with the inscription on the stone
Arabic and Hebrew are also written from right to left, which is said to be related to the ancient people's inscription on stone, for the average person, the left hand holds a hammer, the right hand holds a hammer, and the direction of the engraving is naturally from right to left.
Speaking of this, some people will ask, from top to bottom, from right to left, the way of writing is to adapt to the writing material of Jian Mu, then after the emergence of paper, why does not people's writing style change?
In fact, people have long been accustomed to the left.
The formation of Chinese character writing forms has become a regular rule in the Western Zhou Dynasty at the latest, and the old rules that have been set for thousands of years can be changed?
In addition, the way of writing determines the way of reading, and even though people know that writing from left to right may be more convenient, the habit of opening the book's eyes and glancing to the right is not so easy to change.
After the founding of New China,
In order to follow international practice,
The order in which Chinese characters are written is only beginning to change
Write from left to right, horizontally.
Since 1954,
Student textbooks officially changed from left to right,
Top-to-bottom horizontal printing.
This habit has also been used to this day.
(Source Network)