Nicholas Bodley [mailto:nbodley@...]

> First, cultural; I have little or no idea about the sociology
> of "lefties" [...]

I, for one, didn't even imagine that such a thing as a "sociology of
lefties" could exist. :-)

> Second, for instance, the usual way to start to draw a square
> box, iirc, is to write the top stroke left to right, keep
> pen/brush in contact, then make the down stroke.
> IIrc, that counts as one stroke -- a bent one.

Quite right, but you forgot the left side, which is drawn first; the bent
stroke for top and right sides is second, and the bottom stroke is last.

> However, it would seem that a mirror-image reversal would be
> easier for a "leftie" to write.

Probably, if it would be allowed.

> More generally, this has implications for several details; is
> right-to-left (RtL) char. seq. acceptable?
> (My guess: Only rarely)

Your guess is too possibilist: such a thing absolutely forbidden.

The order and direction of strokes is rigidly determined and, unlike in
Western schools, it is explicitly taught since 1st grade. Also Westerners
who learnt Chinese or Japanese certainly remember a few explicit lessons in
"stroke order" before starting scribbling actual characters.

An orthodox stroke order is essential for at least two reasons:

1) Developing a readable handwriting. If traced with the proper stroke
order, the square that we mentioned before naturally evolves, in a mature
handwriting, into a shape vaguely resembling our lowercase "b" (where the
vertical stem is the left side of the square). If the stroke order would be
reversed, it would probably evolve in something like a lowercase "d", which
would be an unrecognizable shape.

2) Being able to look up characters in a dictionary. There are several ways
of indexing characters, but all of them rely basically on the orthodox
stroke order.

> Of course, top down doesn't matter as much.

It does matter just as much. The rules of "stroke order" determine not only
the number, shape and direction of strokes but also, as the term says, their
order.

> As well, it seems that the radical is often on the left;
> trad'ly. written first? (I've forgotten.)

Most radicals are on the left, but some of them are on right, top, bottom,
or even on two or more sides.

In any case, the left-hand (or top) part is written before than the
right-hand (or bottom) part, regardless whether that parts is a radical or
not. It is the geometric position of components which is important for the
stroke order, not their function.

> It seems possible that an experienced eye could tell that CJK
> text was written by a "leftie".

Probably that's much more difficult than with Western scripts, because of
the rigidly determined direction of brush strokes.

However, it is probably possible for an experienced eye. E.g., perhaps the
slant of vertical strokes differ slightly depending of which hand you used.

> Not sure I want to start a thread about lefties writing
> Arabic (or Hebrew or other RtL scripts, for that matter)
> (yet).

You are probably aware that Western left-handed children, in their first
attempts to write, have a natural tendency to write from right to left,
mirroring all letters.

Well, someone told me that, in Israel and Arab countries, left-handed
children have a tendency to write from left-to-write instead!

Unluckily, I have not been able to find any authoritative confirmation to
this, and even less so to seeing actual written samples by Israeli or Arab
leftie first graders... Anyone grown up with a right-to left script can
confirm or deny this?

> I'm aware that desert life has "special implications",
> culturally, for the left hand.

Yeah. It seems that, in the middle of the Sahara, it is not so easy to buy
toilet paper. :-)

> (Btw, boustrophedon, anyone? :) )

Only when eating my risotto.

--
Marco