Re: Left-handed CJK handwriting?

I'm usually a lurker here, but as an American born and educated, fluent, but
semi-literate, native speaker of Chinese, this question goes to my own
personal experiences, so I thought I'd share.

Regarding the "sociology of lefties" in China, until perhaps the current
generation, left-handedness was distinctly frowned upon, and it was almost
universal practice to force left-handed children to use their right hands,
especially for tasks such as writing and eating. I distinctly remember as a
child in the 70's visiting Taiwan seeing cousins scolded or smacked for
using the "wrong" hand. My grandmother (who was born a leftie) told me that
her rather stern grandmother once threatened to chop off her left hand when
she was caught chopping vegetables with her it. My parents however, tried to
be good, liberal, Dr. Spock reading American parents, so they did not force
me to change, and I blithely wrote and ate with my left hand, which cocked
an eyebrow or two in Taiwan; they granted me some forbearance, I being a
strange half-foreigner. My mother did however get a letter from my
grandfather chastising her for not raising her grandson properly (writing
with my left hand being only one of a number sins evincing a poor
upbringing). I'm told that in Taiwan at lest these days, it's much less
common for parents to try to correct the hand that children use, so lefties
are becoming more common.

Writing Chinese with the left hand does present problems. It is indeed
easier to write horizontal strokes from right to left, which I generally do.
However, as Marco pointed, out a downward bending stroke must be written
from left to right. Separate horizontal strokes don't much matter, until you
write more quickly. A series of horizontal strokes come out as a zigzag, and
in that case you must start left to right, or the character comes out
looking strange. Cursive handwriting, in which many strokes of a character
are joined or elided, is crucially dependent on correct stroke order and
writing direction, otherwise you end up with a meaningless scribble. These
problems I think at least partially explain why my Chinese handwriting is so
atrocious. Some strokes go left, others right; traditional stroke order and
direction is just awkward for a leftie. Another, more modern circumstance in
which stroke order is crucial is handwriting recognition, which is common
for electronic dictionaries and such. The computer often simply will not
understand you if you get the stroke order wrong, or write strokes from
right to left. I find I have to draw my characters very carefully when using
a computer.
Things are even more difficult with traditional brush and ink writing. I
gave up on learning Chinese calligraphy when I concluded that it's near
impossible for a leftie to write with a brush. Strokes look different if you
push the brush rather than pull. Righties pull a stroke from left to right,
but lefties are forced to push in that direction, and the stroke comes out
simply looking wrong. With enough practice I suppose a leftie could learn to
manage, but it's yet another hurdle to jump.

On 7/27/05, Marco Cimarosti <marco.cimarosti@...> wrote:
>
> 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
>
>
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