Timeline for Connection between right (opposite of left) and right (legal term)?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
14 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jan 17, 2014 at 3:27 | comment | added | Joe Pineda | @MarkBeadles I agree: gets clear the very ancient origin of the association of left with evil and right with goodness, but still can't see how thence evolved the legal definition, which I know already existed in Medieval Romance, not sure about Latin. | |
| Sep 18, 2012 at 13:29 | comment | added | ROBOKiTTY | In Mandarin, zuǒ is the morpheme for left (direction). It's occasionally associated with impropriety. The phrase pángmén zuǒdào, lit. 'sidedoor left-way', originally referred to unorthodox cults. It can mean any non-accepted mode of thinking today. | |
| Sep 18, 2012 at 13:28 | comment | added | ROBOKiTTY | In Taiwanese Hokkien, tsiànn is the everyday morpheme for right (direction). It also means upright/straight, real, primary, or exactly (as in exactly on time). One expression for the left hand is bái-tshiú. Bái means ugly/bad. | |
| Sep 15, 2012 at 21:39 | comment | added | Mark Beadles | This answer addresses why "right (direction)" is related to "right (good)", but not why it is related to "right (entitlement)". | |
| Sep 15, 2012 at 10:38 | comment | added | Alenanno | @AlexB. In Italian "sinistra" (left, opposed to right) and "sinistro" (sinister, grim). I thought you'd be interested. :D | |
| Sep 15, 2012 at 0:00 | comment | added | Alex B. | also, note this usage of sinister in Latin: IIC. "With respect to auspices and divination, acc. to the Roman notions, lucky, favorable, auspicious (because the Romans on these occasions turned the face towards the south, and so had the eastern or fortunate side on the left; while the Greeks, turning to the north, had it on their right." perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/… | |
| Sep 14, 2012 at 23:57 | comment | added | Alex B. | As for the Latin words for "left", "sinister" replaced the older words, laevus and scaevus (taboo!). | |
| Sep 14, 2012 at 23:49 | comment | added | Alex B. | By the way, Ivanov has extensive bibliography on this question - let me know if you'd be interested. Mallory and Adams 1997 are of the same opinion, "the semantic associations of 'left' in the various IE stocks (and also among many non-IE as right and left markedness is a universal) are broadly feminine and negative, i.e. left indicates the female side, matrilineality, chthonic, unlucky, unordered, weakness, and is expressed in polar opposition as 'north'" (p. 349). | |
| Sep 14, 2012 at 23:36 | comment | added | Alex B. | Vjacheslav Ivanov (UCLA and RGGU) argues that the left-right dichotomy has been known since Ancient Egypt; left associated with women, right with men. As for Latin, there were other words too, laevus and scaevus. | |
| Sep 14, 2012 at 21:09 | vote | accept | Rafael Emshoff | ||
| Sep 14, 2012 at 19:15 | comment | added | Mark Beadles | These words are older than medieval times. | |
| Sep 14, 2012 at 19:03 | comment | added | Tangurena | @RafaelCichocki, the ancient Greeks also held that left=bad, with some beliefs such as "female sperm" came from the left testicle (this was later documented by Galen and unquestioned for 1500 years). Most European languages are derivatives of Latin. This belief in the "wrongness" of left-things may predate these cultures, but the Sea Peoples destroyed pretty much everyone in the Mediterranean region who could read or write at the end of the Bronze Age (about 1200BC). For more details, I refer you to: amazon.com/The-End-Bronze-Robert-Drews/dp/0691025916 | |
| Sep 14, 2012 at 17:15 | comment | added | Rafael Emshoff | I understand now the connotation of left being bad and right good, but from what I've read so far, it originated before christian theology became dominant enough to influence language. Are the origins really in Latin? Or maybe earlier languages - what about outside of the indo-european scope? And if it should be Latin, is there a first documented usage? To when does this concept of left being bad and right good date back to? I remember something about babys in ancient greece being allowed to move their right hands first, while having their left hands kept bound... | |
| Sep 14, 2012 at 16:47 | history | answered | Tangurena | CC BY-SA 3.0 |