Someone once told me that the direction that written languages follow – left to right, right to left, top to bottom – was due to the tools that influenced their development. I remember the anecdote more than the teller, but, basically, Hebrew is right to left because right-handed people hold the chisel in their left hand and hammer in their right. By contrast, East Asian scripts evolved from the way a brush is held between the fingers in the right hand, and European scripts relied on tools that encouraged right to left. It’s a simple technological determinist reason – but is it true? Continue reading “If William Blake were going to make a poetry ebook”
writing | programming | programmable writing