@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

I agree. In addition, when learning other languages, one has to be willing to make (sometimes embarassing) mistakes. In a culture where "face" is important, making mistakes is a worse cultural situation than in non-face cultures; this leads to people not even trying, or concealing that they have a weak skill in order to not look bad.

I have a number of his works at home. I'll do a little digging. As for your remark on copying references, yes, people do that. Two papers that support your point are: jstor.org/pss/2632315 and jstor.org/pss/170961

@Mitch, the author swaps "white" and "man" in order to mock racism and sexism in language: clergyman becomes clergywhite, and Snow Person is associated with the 7 dwarves.

@hippietrail, Marvin Harris wrote a number of books on food and anthropology, many of which were popular with the general public. You probably read some of them in the past. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_Harris