"Il y a du
gauche!"
I
recently spent a very interesting afternoon in the local public library's
reference section, and would like to share my discoveries with you.
A couple
of years ago, my friend Marcus happened to mention that snailshells mostly
spiral clockwise, but that there are a few species of snails whose shells
spiral the other way. These, he told
me, are called "sinistra" snails. I initially misheard this as "sinister snails", which seemed
like quite an amusing concept - but then Marcus explained that the English word
"sinister" comes from the Latin word "sinistra" which
simply means "left" (as in "left-handed").
This
connection had got me thinking - I found out that the Latin word for right is dexter, suggesting
"dexterity", "dexterous", etc., and started to wonder if other languages had such
connotations associated with their words for left and right.
I had
always assumed that "right" (the opposite of "left") and
"right" (the opposite of
"wrong")
only coincided accidentally, and
that there was nothing deeper to it (much as "left" = opposite of
"right" AND = past tense of "leave"). However, I remembered that the Dutch word
for "right" is recht, and
it seemed possible that there was a connection with the words
"correct", "rectify", etc. There were also the geometic associations -
"rectangle", "right angle", etc. and the legal associations - "civil rights",
"the right to remain silent", etc.
So what
follows is not a theory, or anything of my own imagining. I have simply looked up "left" and
"right" in a number of foreign language dictionaries, and then looked
the foreign words up in the "reverse" dictionaries to find out what
other meanings these words have.
Note: I
apologise to any native speakers of these languages for any mistakes I have
made in terms of incorrect forms of words, missing accents, umlauts and all
those other wonderful typographical symbols that the Scandinavians seem so fond
of.
Note added 26/07/04:
Anyone who finds this interesting ought to have a look at the award-winning
book Right Hand,
Left Hand by Chris
McManus which I was unaware of when I originally put this piece together. Also relevant may be certain
sections on left and right brain hemispheres in the intriguing book I am currently
reading: The Alphabet Versus the Goddess by Leonard Shlain.
German: left = linke, right = recht linkisch (adj) - awkward, clumsy, ungainly mean, nasty - as in "er is ein ganz linker Kerl" (he is a nasty piece of work) linke (noun) - deceiver, swindler,
crook, homosexual and wrong - as
in "linken fuB zuerst aufstehen" (to get out of bed on the wrong -
literally left side), and "die
linke seite des stoffes, der tapete, etc." (wrong side of wallpaper,
fabric, etc.) recht - just, due, true, real,
legitimate, correct, proper, well, privilege, power, law, justice rechtkeit - legality, lawfulness, honesty rechtschaffen - honest, righteous Dutch: left = linkse, right = rechts links - sinister, awkward, cackhanded,
hamfisted, maladroit "links
laten liggen" - "to give someone the left shoulder" (to ignore
them) linksheid - awkwardness recht - law, claim, title,
prerogative, privilege, authority, power, straight, direct, plain, just, fair "met
recht en reden" - for a good reason "tot
zijn recht komen" - to stand out well, look well rechtdoor - directly, unswervingly,
frankly, candidly rechtschapen - honest, upright, honourable,
virtuous French: left = gauche, right = droit gauche - awkward, clumsy, skew-whiffed,
warped "gauche
de la voie" - crookedness,
lateral buckling gauchi - twisted gauchir - to distort, to misrepresent gauchissant - having a false bearing "Il
y a du gauche" (literally "there is left") "This isn't
Kosher!", "I smell a rat!", "I have my doubts about
this!" "Emmerder
quelqu'un jusqu' a la gauche" - "to go out of one's way to be a pain
in the neck" droit (noun) - law droit (adjective) - upright, straight, sound, sane droitement - honesty droite - straight line droiture - uprightness, rectitude of
character Italian - left = sinistro/a, right = destro/a sinistro - crooked, sinister, ominous,
inauspicious, grim, lurid, contrary, unfavourable sinistrato -injured, having suffered
disaster, bombed-out sinistro (noun) - accident, mishap,
disaster destro - skilful, dexterous,
propitious, favourable, suitable, clever, able, adroit Spanish - left = izquierda/o, right = derecha/o izquierdo - crooked, twisted derecho - straight, direct, upright,
honest, lucky (+ all the usual legal conotations) "no
hay derecho" - it isn't fair (literally "there is not right") Portuguese - left = esquerda/o, right = direita/o esquerdo - awkward direito (adjective) - honest, just,
proper, straight, correct, direct direito (noun) - legal right Romanian - left = stanga, right = dreapta stangaciu - awkward, uncouth, unhandy,
gawky drept = straight, just, direct dreptate = right, justice, reason Latin - left = sinister, right = dexter sinister - awkward, wrong, perverse,
improper, unlucky, adverse, unfavourable, bad dexter - handy, dexterous, skilful,
suitable, fitting, lucky, favourable, propitious, fortunate Welsh - left = chwith, right = deheuedd chwith = strange, sad "O
Chwith" = the wrong way chwidthdod - strangeness, sense of loss chwithig - awkward deheuig - skilfull, dexterous Greek - left = aristefoz, right
= dexioh aristefoz - boding ill,
ominous, awkward, erring, sinister dexioh - fortunate,
dexterous, ready, skilful, clever, courteous, kindly Russian -
left = &^%$, right = &$%*&^$% [sorry,
no Cyrilic alphabet font was available!] left - illegal, unofficial -
wrong (in the sense of the wrong
side of the wallpaper, or getting up on the wrong side of the bed) right (noun) - law, truth, uprightness, just rule, regulation, correctness, regularity (adjective) righteous,
upright, proper Polish - left
= lewy, right = prawa lewy - false, phony. lewa
= trick prawa (noun) - truth prawdziwy = true, real, authentic prawidlowy = regular, proper, correct prawny = legal, lawful, legitimate,
rightful prawoslawny = orthodox prawosc = honesty, integrity, rectitude,
righteousness, uprightness Some
final observations: I am not
a linguist, philologist or etymologist (I'm a mathematician/musician), so this
may already have been studied and written about extensively. However, as I have been alive for 30 years
and taken an active interest in language, history and culture without ever having noticed this, I
think it's safe to assume that this is not a widely-known phenomenon. Scandinavian
languages, incidentally, appear to have no value-judgements associated for
their "left/right" words. Having checked Swedish, Danish and Norwegian dictionaries, it appears
that these words ("vanster/hoger", "venstre/hojre",
"venstre/hogre") are purely directional*. I have no idea why this is. My understanding of western languages is that they split roughly into
three families: Romantic (Latin-based, like Spanish, Italian, French,
Portuguese, etc.), Germanic (German,
English, Dutch, etc.) and Slavic,
which includes all of the Scandinavian languages. But I believe Russian is also part of the Slavic family, and as
we have seen, Russian does make left-right value judgements. Hungarian
("bal/jobb"), and the now-defunct Cornish language
("cleth"/"dyghow") also appear to lack left-right value
judgements. (Note: I have since been informed by a Hungarian correspondent that
this is not the case!) I was
also quite surprised to find that Welsh (among the most ancient of European
languages) also had these associations in its "left/right" words. Several
languages have the usual "positive" connotations for their
"right", but lack "negative" connotations for their
"left": Finnish -
left = vasen, right = oikea oikea - true, genuine, just, correct, real, true proper, upright, orthodox,
authentic and, as usual, a lot of related words with legal associations oikaista - straighten, correct, rectify,
put right Slovaka -
left = l'avy, right = pravy pravy = real, pravda = truth (wasn't this the
name of the official newspaper of the USSR?) pravdaze = of course pravdlo = honest Turkish -
left = sol/a, right = sag The only
negative connotation for sol which I
could find is the expression "sol tar afindan kalmak" which means
"to get out of bed on the wrong side". This is a very curious expression which seems to occur in a wide
selection of languages. sag = alive, living, healthy, well sagin lang=EN-GB
style='font-family:"Arial";mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;mso-ansi-language:
EN-GB'> = exact, precise
saglam = sound, strong, well-built, well-made,
secure, healthy, strong, reliable, trustworthy, dependable
saglik = health
One might
think that English is among these languages, as the only obvious
"non-directional"* meaning of "left" is the past-tense
"to leave" (as in "Elvis has left the building").
However,
having checked an English dictionary's entry for "left" I found the
following:
[origin]
Middle English luft, lift, left, Old
English left, lyft (attested only in lyftadl, paralysis
"left-disease") akin to Middle Dutch luft, lucht, weak, useless.
left-handed adj.4. Awkward;
clumsy; maladroit. 5. Obliquely
derisive; dubious; insincere: a
left-handed compliment. 6. Of, pertaining to, or born of a
morganatic marriage [a marriage of royalty to someone of a lower social
position]
The same
dictionary revealed the following in its extensive entry for adjective form of
"right":
1. In
accordance with or conformable to justice, law, morality, or similar principle:
right action.
2. In
accordance with fact, reason, or truth; correct: the right answer
3. Fitting,
proper, appropriate: the right one for
the job
4. Most favourable, desirable, or convenient: the right time to act
5. In a
satisfactory state or condition; in good order: I'll put it right in a moment.
6. Mentally
sound or normal; sane: in one's right
mind
7. Physically normal or healthy; well: Are you feeling quire right?
8. Intended to be worn facing outwards or
towards an observer: the right side of
the cloth
9a. Archaic. Genuine;
not spurious.
9b. Informal. Real; thorough: I felt a right
fool
13. Archaic. Straight; uncurved; direct: a
right line
We also
have the words righteous, correct,
rectify, rectitude, direct, right-angle, rectangle, legal rights, maladroit,
right-hand man.
It
occured to me that the word "ruler" with its dual meaning of both
"tool to draw straight lines with" and "the person who
makes/upholds the rules" might somehow relate to the word
"right". The origin of
"rule" is given as
"Middle
English riule, reule, from Old
French, from Latin regula straight
stick, ruler, rule, pattern]".
So
"rule" and "ruler" are related to "regular". Taking into account all of the above,
it seems quite likely that
"regular" is linked to the Germanic recht. If this is the case
then we can add to our list "regulate", "regal",
"regalia", "regale", "royal", "royalty", "regent",
"regiment".
Here,
then, are the complete lists of associated words:
LEFT =
awkward, clumsy, ungainly, mean, nasty, wrong,sinister, cackhanded,
hamfisted, maladroit, crooked, twisted, sinister, ominous, inauspicious,
grim, lurid, contrary, unfavourable, injured, having suffered disaster,
bombed-out, uncouth, unhandy, gawky, perverse, improper, unlucky, adverse, unfavourable, bad, boding ill,
erring, strange, sad, illegal, unofficial, obliquely derisive, dubious,
insincere, weak, useless
deceiver, swindler, crook, homosexual,
crookedness, to distort, to misrepresent,
accident, mishap, disaster, strangeness, sense of loss, the wrong way,
paralysis
RIGHT =
just, due, true, real, legitimate, correct,
proper, well, honest, righteous, straight, direct, plain, fair, unswerving, frank, candid, upright,
honourable, virtuous, sound, sane, skilful, dexterous, propitious, favourable, suitable,
clever, able, adroit, lucky, ready, courteous, kindly, orthodox, alive,
healthy, living, exact, precise, strong, well-built, well-made, eloquent,
reliable, trustworthy, dependable, fitting, appropriate, desirable, convenient,
genuine, thorough, regular, royal
privilege, power, law, justice, legality,
lawfulness, honesty, claim, title, prerogative, authority, to look
well, straight line, uprightness,
rectitude of character, truth, reason, regularity, regulation, correctness,
health, royalty
It's worth remembering that the left and right sides of the body are connected to the right and left brain hemispheres, respectively. Although the widely held belief that "left brain = logic/language/mathematics, right brain = intuition/visualisation/creative expression" has been superseded by a more subtle understanding of these matters, we can safely conclude that all of the word associations above tend to regard the left brain hemisphere as superior to the right. This suggests to me that some fundamental imbalance in a certain sector of humanity got encoded in our languages a very long time ago. I won't speculate further - you will have to make your own mind up about this.
For
further reading, I'd suggest looking into Robert Graves' writings on
"solar" and "lunar" consciousness.
Someone
recently reminded me of the superstition involving throwing a pinch of salt
over one's left shoulder, and claimed
that part of this was the fact that the devil resided on one's left shoulder.
The Irish
language is the only one I have encountered whose left-related words have any
even remotely 'desirable' associations. These are 'playful', 'crafty', and 'tricky'. If we consider the fact that the left-right duality apparent in
all the other languages mentioned here could be related to a devil-god duality,
then this suggests an earlier concept of the devil as a Pan-like trickster
character, rather than the 100% evil anti-God which the devil has become in the
Christian world.
The
following is an excerpt from the extraordinary book VALIS by the science-fiction writer Philip K. Dick (Bantam,
1981). The book contains an appendix
which is presented as the notebooks of the main character 'Horselover Fat'
(clearly based on P.K. Dick himself). This character has undergone a psychosis and has been channelling
information from a self-organising intelligence system known as VALIS. Points 47–51 of the appendix, discussing a
sort of creation myth (with reference to Gnosticism) appear to be relevant
here.
47. TWO SOURCE COSMOGONY: The One was and was-not, combined, and desired to
separate the was-not from the was. So
it generated a diploid sac which contained, like an eggshell, a pair of twins,
each an androgyny, spinning in opposite directions (the Yin and Yang of Taoism,
with the One as the Tao). The plan of
the One was that both twins would emerge into being (wasness) simultaneously;
however, motivated by a desire to be (which the One had implanted in both
twins), the counterclockwise twin broke through the sac and separated prematurely;
i.e. before full term. This was the dark or Yin twin. Therefore it was defective. At full term the wiser twin emerged. Each twin formed a unitary entelechy, a
single living organism made of psyche
and soma, still rotating in opposite
directions to each other. The full term
twin called Form I by Parmenides, advanced correctly through its growth stages,
but the prematurely born twin, called Form II, languished.
The next
step in the One's plan was that the Two would become the Many, through their dialectic
interaction. From them as
hyperuniverses they projected a hologram-like interface, which is the pluriform
universe we creatures inhabit. The two
sources were to intermingle equally in maintaining our universe, but Form II
continued to languish toward illness, madness and disorder. These aspects she projected into our
universe.
It was
the One's purpose for our hologramatic universe to serve as a teaching
instrument by which a variety of new lives advanced until ultimately they would
be isomorphic with the One. However,
the decaying condition of hyperuniverse II introduced malfactors which damaged
our hologramatic universe. This is the
origin orf entropy, undeserved suffering, chaos and death, as well as the
Empire, the Black Iron Prison; in essence, the aborting of the proper health
and growth of the life forms within the hologramatic universe. Also, the teaching function was grossly
impaired, since only the signal from the hyperuniverse I was information-rich;
that from II had become noise.
The
psyche of hyperuniverse I sent a micro-form of itself into hyperuniverse II to
attempt to heal it. The micro-form was
apparent in our hologramatic universe as Jesus Christ. However, hyperuniverse II, being deranged,
at once tormented, humiliated, rejected and finally killed the micro-form of
the healing psyche of her healthy twin. After that, hyperuniverse II continued to decay into blind, mechanical,
purposeless causal processes. It then
became the task of Christ (more properly the Holy Spirit) to either rescue the
lfie forms in the hologramatic universe, or abolish all influences on it
emanating from II. Approaching its task
with caution, it prepared to kill the deranged twin, since she cannot be
healed; i.e. she will not allow
herself to be healied because she does not understand that she is sick. This illness and madness pervades us and
makes us idiots living in private, unreal worlds. The original plan of the One can only be realized now by the
division of hyperuniverse I into two healthy hyperuniverses, which will
transform the hologramatic universe into the successful teaching machine it was
designed to be. We will experience this
as the "Kingdom of God."
Within
time, hyperuniverse II remains alive: "The Empire never ended. But in eternity, where the hyperuniverses
exist, she has been killed - of necessity - by the healthy twin of
hyperuniverse I, who is our champion. The One grieves for this death, since the One loved both twins;
therefore the information of the Mind consists of a tragic tale of the death of
a woman, the undertones of which generate anguish into all the creatures of the
hologramatic universe without their knowing why. This grief will depart when the healthy twein undergoes mitosis and
the "Kingdom of God" arrives. The machinery for this transformation - the procession within time fromt
he Age of Iron to the Age of Gold - is at work now; in eternity it is already
accomplished.
48. ON OUR NATURE. It is proper to say: we appear
to be memory coils (DNA carriers capable of experience) in a computer-like
thinking system which, although we have correctly recorded nd stored thousands
of years of experiential information, and each of us possesses somewhat
different deposits from all the other life forms, there is a malfunction - a
failure - of memory retrieval. There
lies the trouble in our particular subcircuit. "Salvation" through gnosis
- more properly anamnesis (the loss of amnesia) - although it has
individual significance for each of us - a quantum leap in perception, identity,
cognition, understanding, world- and self-experience, including immortality -
it has greater and further importance for the system as a whole, inasmuch as
these memories are data needed by it and valuable to it, to its overall
functioning.
Therefore
it is in the process of self-repair, which includes: rebuilding our subcircuit
via linear and orthogonal time changes, as well as continual signaling to us to
stimulate blocked memory banks within us to stimulate blocked memory banks
within us to fire and hence retrieve what is there.
The
external information or gnosis, then
consists of disinhibiting instructions, with the core content actually
intrinsic to us - that is, already there (first observed by Plato; viz: that learning is a form of
remembering).
The
ancients possessed techniques (sacraments and rituals) used largely in the
Greco-Roman mystery religions, including early Christianity, to induce firing
and retrieval, mainly with a sense of its restorative value to the individuals;
the Gnostics, however, correctly saw the ontological value of what they called
the Godhead Itself, the total entity.
48. Two realms there are, upper and lower. The upper, derived from hyperuniverse I or Yang, Form I of Parmenides,
is sentient and volitional. the lower realm,
or Yin, Form II of Parmenides, is mechanical, driven by blind, efficient cause,
deterministic and without intelligence, since it emanates from a dead
source. In ancient times it was termed
"astral determinism." We are
trapped, by and large, in the lower realm, but are through the sacraments, by
means of the plasmate, extricated. Until astral determinism is broken, we are not even aware of it, so
occluded are we. "The Empire never
ended."
49. The name of the healthy twin, hyperuniverse I, is Nommo
[footnote: Nommo is represented in a
fish form, the early Christian fish.] The name of the sick twin, hyperuniverse II, is Yurugu. These names are known to the Dogon people of
western Sudan in Africa.
50. The primordial source of all our religions lies with the ancestors of
the Dogon tribe, who got their cosmogony and cosmology directly from the
three-eyed invaders who visited long ago. The three-eyed invaders were mute and deaf and telepathic, could not
breathe our atmosphere, had the elongated misshapen skull of Ikhnaton, and
emanated from a planet in the star-system Sirius. Although they had no hands, but had, instead, pincer claws such
as a crab has, they were great builders. They covertly influence our history toward a fruitful end.
51. Ikhnaton wrote:
"...When
the fledgling in the egg chirps in the egg,
Thou
givest him breath therein to preserve him alive.
When thou
has brought him together
To the
point of bursting the egg,
He cometh
forth from the egg,
To chirp
with all his might.
He goeth about
upon his twoeet
When he
hath come from therefrom.
How
manifold are they works!
They are
hidden from before us,
O sole
god, whose powers no other possesseth.
Thou
didst create the earth according to they heart
While
thou wast alone:
Men, all
cattle large and small,
All that
go about upon their feet;
All that
are on high,
That fly
with their wings.
Thou art
in my heart,
There is
no other that knoweth thee
Save thy
son Ikhnaton.
Thou hast
made him wise
In thy
designs and in thy might.
The world
is in they hand..."
52. Our
world is still secretly ruled by the hidden race descended from Ikhnaton, and
his knowledge is the information of the Macro-Mind itself.
"All
cattle rest upon their paturage,
The trees
and the plants flourish,
The birds
flutter in their marshes,
Their
wings uplifted in adoration to thee.
All the
sheep dance upon their feet,
All
winged things fly,
They live
when thou hast shone upon them."
From
Ikhnaton this knowledge passed to Moses, and from Moses to Elijah, the Immortal
Man, who became Christ. But underneath
all the names there is only one Immortal Man; and we are that man.
*Even the
word "directional" is infected! It belongs to the same family as
direct, correct and rectify (from the Germanic recht). It amuses me how,
when I explain this phenomenon to people, they'll exclaim "You're
right!...er..I mean you're correct...er, oh..."