Abstract
The modern alphabet had its beginnings in about 1700–1300 B.C. Today, two principal branches are in use: the Greek writing system and its derivatives (Latin, Russian, etc.), written from left to right, and Hebrew and Arabic, which derive from Aramaic and are written from right to left.
This chapter gives the main ideas from a paper read before the French Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres: Comptes rendus des séances de l’année 1987, pp. 6–56.
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Sirat, C. (1988). The Material Conditions of the Lateralization of the Ductus. In: de Kerckhove, D., Lumsden, C.J. (eds) The Alphabet and the Brain. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-01093-8_11
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