In what may be one of the most random posts on this blog, I wanted to write about a pattern that may exist. The English letter and the Hebrew letter is written from left to right, while the Arabic letter is written from right to left. The English sentence is written from left to right; the Hebrew sentence and the Arabic sentence is written from right to left. Any cultural pattern?
In discussing this with a friend of mine, he posited that two great forces drive reality - Justice and Mercy. These forces are driven by the attributes at work in our system - Justice is essentially the way it works and Mercy is the way we want it to work. (Alot more could be said about this and perhaps a later post will address it.)
His thesis is that cultures which write letters from left to right are based on Justice, while cultures that read and write from right to left are based on Mercy. Thus, English and Hebrew language-based cultures are Justice-based, while Arabic cultures are Mercy-based. Further, the writing of the sentence either confirms or offsets this primary emphasis (primary because of the building block nature of the emphasis). Thus, English language-based cultures are Justice-based with an additional Justice emphasis. Hebrew language-based cultures are Justice-based with an additional Mercy emphasis. Arabic language-based cultures are Mercy-based with an additional Mercy emphasis.
I think that there is probably something to this novel theory. I spend much of my time reading annual reports. The format in most of these reports reads with the most recent on the left backwards to the right. In a sense, we are reading history backwards and the way management wants it to work. If, on the other hand, we were to read the reports as they historically occurred, we would be reading with Justice - which is really the thing I want to do with an annual report, but not typically what the management would want. Just a thought.
4 comments:
Dear Scott,
What about top to bottom? Did your prescient friend grace you with any insight on that? I'm teaching "the English" here in South Korea, and some of the older books are written top to bottom, stretching syllabic groups of letters down the page in columns, not unlike the Japanese of yore, intimating their influence during the colonial years. I roomed with you our freshman year in Old East, what was it, room 19? I went by a nickname then, Wally. My full name is Walter Nathaniel Long III. I have four kids and a bun in the oven. I read that you have three, in your Morehead directory. I spent perhaps forty minutes searching you out, with Google. Stupid me went through your full name first, "Scott Michael Granowski," when the plain "Scott Granowski" turned this up first page. Good to be back in touch.
Send me your e-mail and I'll send a photo of you. I'm thinking about moving to Nebraska or Virginia, searching out places to move my brood.
It's late. I must get them to bed.
N.
I wrote "I'll send you a photo of you." I meant, "I'll send you a photo of my family."
N.
Scott Scott:
Here good article. Read read. Good good. It be talk about smart Jews. Me give article down:
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/Jews--IQAn-Exchange-10916?page=all
To the Editor:
I would add the factor of language to Charles Murray’s consideration of Jewish intelligence. Ashkenazi Jews were one of the only peoples to have been literate in two languages: Hebrew, which was read from right to left and often without vowels, and the local Indo-European language, which would have been read from left to right with vowels.
Reading from left to right, we rely more on our right eye as we move across the page. The right eye, in turn, is controlled by the left side of the brain, the seat of literal-logical intelligence. By the same token, reading from right to left involves more the interpretive-creative right side of the brain. It is no accident, for example, that Hebrew and other languages that go from right to left can do without vowels and have the reader depend on context—interpretive skills—to identify words. (If vowels were removed from English, only context would help determine if ct meant cut or cat.) An impact of the fortuitous but accidental environmental factor of reading both ways might have been to create a new kind of intelligence, one that blended logic and creativity in equal degrees.
Mr. Murray takes note of differences in IQ between Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews. Indeed, residing in lands where Arabic (read from right to left) was the dominant language, the latter did not have the dual-directional advantage of their Ashkenazi brethren.
Stephen H. Schwartz
New York City
Mister Murry give good write:
Stephen H. Schwartz’s hypotheses about the significance of dual literacy in languages that are written from left to right and vice versa, and languages with and without vowels, are also fascinating, especially their codicil about the Sephardi Jews who moved to Arab lands where the second language was also written right to left. I am not competent to discuss the neuroscience of his argument, but the limited effects of shared environment in general (see my response to Mr. Kurtzman) lead me to be cautious about accepting the word “create” in Mr. Schwartz’s statement that using both sides of the brain in this manner would “create a new kind of intelligence.” But we are agreed that the requirements of being a Jew living in Europe could select for that kind of intelligence.
N.
P.S. Wifey get big. Bun in Oven.
Here my web log: www.xanga.com/padooker
Here my bidnizz:
www.lucidlanguagesociety.com
Beverley, Davis, Laurie fine. David, Ellen Star ... I dunno. Beverly say Ellen Fine. Lori take hubbie on world trip in sailboat, sell house, everything, homeschool two children ... sound like fruitcake 60's nuts to me, barefoot & pregnant (Meek "Peace!") Don't say Lori I say she fruitcake.
You financial analysis good (I like the trains. Beer? Yep, exchange rate. But dollah bounce back eight year later.). How come why for people don't just invest in themselves? (Ans. below.) Anytime company go public, public admission of self-defeat, profit drop from above 20% to something dribbling, below 10 after tax.
Ans: They run out ideas. Self no good they tink.
This post from Yang Long Home is spot on! I'm so grateful for it - it explains as aspect of how our brains operate. I have been working through a thorough review of Latin grammar during this COVID - 19 period - a language which employs left to right processing and am experiencing the calming effects on my mental processing.
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