The Rise & Fall Of Reading & Writing
By Steven Gill
Author of The History & The Development Of The Doctrine Of The Trinity
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10 MIN READ
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Have you ever wondered why some languages are written moving “right-to-left” on the page, while others move “left-to-right?” I found this subject fascinating recently. Although I can’t begin to explain all the complexities for this phenomenon within writing, I learned recently that the formation of these two forms of writing tell us a great deal about how the world we came to live in developed, and what may happen if we relinquish what we’ve learned.
While writing broadly developed through cuneiform and hieroglyphics in ancient Mesopotamia, it was the Hebrews who gave the world the first alphabet. Before the alphabet, writing was largely characterized by pictures and symbols that were not at all uniform and difficult to decipher. Cuneiform and hieroglyphics required the writer to learn more than 700 different characters, some of which varied in meaning between regions. This complex system of writing was cumbersome and limited the number of people that would ever have access to reading and writing. Because of this, knowledge was kept in the hands of a few. Ancient priests and scribes were charged with the responsibility of preserving the script, but when the priests and the scribes passed on, so did the writing. In just a few short generations, entire civilizations were forgotten because of the limited scope of reading and writing.
Enter the ancient Hebrews. In the early 1900s, world renown archeologist Flinders Petrie stumbled across evidence that the Israelites – perhaps during their journey out of Egypt – had developed a form of writing that truncated Egyptians signs and symbols into an initial phonetic sound. For the first time, symbols could be universally learned and understood because they had phonetic – not interpretive – significance. The symbols could be re-arranged to create a larger sound – a word – that could be learned by anyone willing to develop an understanding of the individual characters. And the word – not the picture or symbol – possessed interpretive significance. The writing was comprehensible in scope as well – just 22 letters made up the ancient alphabet. This was the remarkable moment when the ancient Israelites unlocked the door to modern reading and writing as we know it today. Every major civilization – particularly in the West – owes its written language to the Jews. Evidence of this may be found in the fact that the ancient Greeks adopted Hebrew structure and phonetics in their own writing. The first three letters of the Hebrew alphabet are “Aleph,” “Bet,” and “Gimmel.” In Greek, they are “Alpha,” “Beta,” and “Gamma.” In English, we say, “A,” “B,” and “C.” Even the name, “alphabet” comes from the English transliteration of the first two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. “Aleph-Bet.”
In ancient times, the migration of Semitic peoples to Eastern Europe and the surrounding areas contributed to the expanse of written language into the western world. The ancient diasporic Hebrews taught many nations living in these regions about their writing. Eventually, the Greeks adopted a varied form of the Hebrew script that also incorporated many of their own written traditions. But there was one major difference: The Greeks were writing everything backwards.
At first, they tried to adopt the method of the Hebrews, writing right-to-left. But soon, they were producing manuscripts that worked in a “Z” pattern, zig-zaggingacross the page. The first line would be right-to-left, the line below it left-to-right, then back to right-to-left again, etc. The pages were incredibly confusing and difficult to decipher. Eventually, the Greeks settled on a new method altogether: Left-to-right writing.
The question is, why?
The ancient Hebrew alphabet includes only consonant characters. There are no vowels in ancient Hebrew. Because of this, Hebrew writing is principally distinguished from western languages both in method and interpretation. Let me offer an example:
If one were to use the Hebrew method using English characters, a word might look something like this: “h-t.” “c-t.” “s-n.” And so, in English we might ask the question: Are these words “hat,” “cut,” and “sun?” Or perhaps they are “hot,” “cat,” and “sin?” Without the vowels, we just don’t know. The only way we could decipher their meaning is if we had the context of the rest of the sentence to provide us with more clues. And that is precisely how ancient Hebrew works! In Hebrew, the surrounding context of any given sentence is needed in order to understand the correct translation of the individual words that make up the sentence.
Greek, however, was different.
In its earliest forms, the Hebrew language was not written with the intent that individual words could stand alone with one singular universal meaning. This distinguishes it from Greek and English drastically. To understand Hebrew, the reader needs the context of the sentence broadly. By contrast, the Greeks expanded the alphabet and developed vowel sounds that allowed words to have stand-alone, singular interpretations that could keep them independent from the greater context of the sentence. And there is strong evidence to suggest that this phenomenon in writing happened due to the development of “left-to-right” writing.
Many of us have heard about the divide between “left-brain” and “right-brain” thinking. Most of the distinguishing features that have been labeled between left and right brain thinkers over the last 50 years are rooted in myth and pop-psychology. But there is one aspect of left and right brain dichotomy that neuroscientists agree on: the divide between the two hemispheres has shaped how we think about written languages.
The right side of the brain – the larger, more active and involved in decision making – maps the greater context of our world. It offers us the “50,000 foot” perspective of what we see. The context. By contrast, the left hemisphere – more focused and limited in scope – provides the stand alone, here and now perspective. It individualizes circumstances, mechanisms, and yes, even words.
Through examination of how ancient eastern and western cultures developed, scientists have found something remarkable about written languages: They tell us how their authors perceived the world they lived in.
All cultures that developed right-to-left forms of writing are “we-dominant” cultures. Their vocabulary greatly limits the use of the word “I.” They see and speak in terms of universal causes and effects, and the relationship their behavior has to all the people and places they are connected to broadly. This is found most commonly in eastern cultures. (I.e., Hebrew, Arabic, Urdu, Maldivian, etc.). By contrast, western languages which use the left-to-right style are very individualistic in interpretation. Their writing is not only “I” dominant, but centrally focuses on singular and individual interpretations of outcomes. They are obsessed with cause and effect and determinant factors in outcomes. This is found most commonly in written form through Greek, Latin, and English. And remarkably, through studying these written languages scientists have discovered that when working in these latter languages, the left side of the brain stays active and involved in the process. In eastern languages it is the opposite – the right side of the brain is providing the greater source of guidance in the writing process.
Working together, the two hemispheres of our brain have brought us to where you and I live presently in the world of language and writing. Through reading and writing we understand both the individual and the collective meaning of our world. We see causes and effects, but we also see meaning and purpose. From the left, we see what things are. From the right, we see what things mean. And the thoughtful development of reading and writing has unlocked the door to many of the greatest discoveries in our world. But I fear all of that is changing.
What about today? We may read and write in English, but where is our language headed? Is there an alternative to left-right engagement? If so, what happens when we let go of the whole – function and context, method and purpose, form and function. What happens if we devolve into an older, more primitive form of communication?
According to a recent study, between 1974 and 2016 the vocabulary of the average American has decreased by more than a half a standard deviation. Even when adjusting for college educated students, this statistic is not influenced even slightly. Perspective on the significance of this decline is found in another jarring statistic uncovered in the study. While roughly 171,000 words within the English language are still considered in common use, less than 20,000 are now learned and used by the average American throughout the span of their life. This is a decline of more than 40,000 words over the last 2 centuries. In short, we are losing our ability to speak with nuance, to write with specificity, and to convey meaning through our words. Our words have become more abrasive, more abrupt, and less clear.
The average American now reads less than 12 books per year. When adjusted for the 2% of avid readers who artificially inflate the average, that number is reduced to less than 4 books per year. Just in the last 10 years, the average time that Americans spend reading has fallen from 40 minutes per-week to less than 20. If this trend continues, the amount of time that the average American spends reading per-week will be 0 minutes within the next 10 years.
We are moving in the wrong direction. When civilization made progress, it did so on the back of reading and writing. The expansive growth of information, communication, and shared thought brought people together through the power of the pen. Today, as the written word diminishes, so too has our trust in information, communication, and the thoughts of others. The less we engage with thoughtful discourse within ourselves, the less we are inclined to value it in others. We have refused to learn on our own accord, and so we have come to distrust or ignore its value in others as well. Because we have become dismissive of our need to learn within our own lives, we have no patience for learning from the lives and thoughts of the world around us. We have reduced our ability to communicate our mostprincipled thoughts to 140 characters in a Tweet or a Facebook post. We are becoming more primitive in our communication, relying on television, movies, and social media to communicate our greater thoughts to the world. Where once we depended on not less than 90,000 words to tell us what we should know about a certain science, philosophy, or politic, we now demand it be revealed in a 1-minute Instagram clip, or not at all.
Just as the ancient world before the Hebrews, we have slowly let go of reading and writing and replaced it with image making. We are relinquishing our ability to think, confusing communication with expression. We paint pictures, create forms, cast images – and these conjure feeling. But thoughtful discourse, reasoned truth, and the communicated conviction of words are in decline.
Our patience has declined because our belief in the value of words has declined. And now, as the ancient Mesopotamians, we are reverting to a condition of expression through fantastic images, pictures, and signs. Difficult to decipher, and still more difficult to understand. And, just as the ancient Mesopotamians, if we do not let go of this primitive form of communication, we are headed for extinction.
The challenge I want to present to the reader is to devote more of their personal time this week to reading and writing, and to commit less of themselves to “rabbit-holes” of social media. Scrolling through images and videos is a neurologically passive activity that is diminishing our ability to have thoughtful discourse with the world around us. Improve the world around you by first improving yourself – pick up a book this week. Write down what you learned. Take time to dictate to yourself what you agreed with and what you disagreed with about the book. Share what you learned with someone else. And remember that, just as the Mesopotamians, when reading and writing are reduced to the hands of only a few, it is not more than a generation before our lives and legacies are forgotten.
