|
FROM RIGHT TO LEFT
- Hebrew is written from right to left.
- The common accepted reason is that in the past Hebrew was used for
inscriptions on stone (compare "the Tables of Testimony").
- Using the hammer and scalpel, it was easier to keep the scalpel in the
left hand and beat with the hammer in the right hand.
- And in fact those semitic languages which were written in
cuneiform on clay tablets, as Babylonian and Ugaritic (the latter a
very similar language to Hebrew) are written from left to right,
had they written it from right to left they would have rubbed out the characters with the writing hand.
This is an image of a clay tablet in Ugarit (14th.
century B.C.E.).
It is the alphabet written from left to right.
This little tablet (6 cm.) is today in the Damascus museum.
Back to lesson one
The Department for Jewish
Zionist Education
The Pedagogic Center
Web Site Manager: Esther Carciente
|