Why did the ancients write from right to left?

This is a big problem, because China has thousands of years of civilization, and writing is our tool to record history and civilization.

Most people think this is a reading habit. But shouldn't there be a writing carrier to form reading habits? The reason why ancient Chinese characters in China are written from right to left is mainly because the writing carrier used by the ancients is bamboo slips, which are connected by lines, then written on them and then rolled into "books".

China pays attention to following the trend. Writing on bamboo slips must be based on the lines of bamboo slips and the serial way of bamboo slips, so ancient people write vertically. As for why you want to write from right to left, you can imagine that if you write from left to right instead of from right, because you write with your right hand, will your right hand always press the unwrapped part when you write, making it inconvenient to write?

Bamboo slips have been used in China for over 1000 years. From the Spring and Autumn Period and Warring States Period to the Wei and Jin Dynasties, although there were papers and silks in Sui and Tang Dynasties, it was a transitional period. It was not until after the Song Dynasty that paper became the mainstream. As a cultural carrier for more than 1000 years, bamboo slips and their writing methods and reading methods have long been integrated into the genes of a nation. Even when paper becomes the carrier of words, people still write and read in the same way as before: from right to left, reading vertically.

The Opium War opened the door to China, and western civilization impacted all aspects of ancient civilization in China. Specific to the language, following the vernacular and simplified characters, the writing of ancient classical Chinese is gradually changing. It was not until the founding of New China that Guo Moruo and others proposed that Chinese characters should be written vertically on the left, rather than horizontally on the right.

After 1955, the Ministry of Education and the Cultural Reform Commission jointly held a national conference on text reform, and printed materials were printed horizontally throughout the country. After that, all kinds of newspapers and books were changed into horizontal rows and right rows, and the traditional vertical writing from left to right also changed. Now the books written vertically on the left are basically reprints of ancient books, or as an idea of book design.