Derrick de Kerckhove gives a coherent explanation of why the switch from writing and reading the alephtav from right to left to writing and reading the Greek alphabet from left to right was a move towards perfecting the alphabet or at least making reading it more efficient. Indeed, he views this as a necessary innovation in alphabetic technology once vowels are introduced:
It is quite possible that we write to the right not only because that is how we have been taught to do it, but principally because that is how our brain and our muscular system want us to do it ... [The hemispherical differentiation of our brains into left and right has] the utmost relevance to the direction of orthographies. Clinical research shows that we do not see the same way to the left and to the right. What we see to the left is literally 'comprehended', that is, taken all at once. But what we see to the right is analyzed bit-by-bit. In effect the work of our eyes is divided like the work of our hands. The two left halves seize the world, and the two right halves cut it for us into its component parts. How relevant is this to the question of the alphabet? To read any writing system, you have to do two things:
- recognize the shape of the symbols
- analyze the sequence of symbols
Depending upon which is most urgent, the shape or the sequence, the writing system will go left or right. If you have to guess and cross-check the writing, it is important to see the shape first. Because they have to guess the value of their unwritten vowels, Arabic and Hebraic readers have to cross-check their texts. To survey the whole field at once, our visual system works faster and better in the left field of vision. On the contrary, when we read German or English, we need first and foremost to see the order of the letters one after the other. This is done faster and better in the right visual field. That is why our alphabet, which is a linear, sequential system of coding information is written to the right.
- Derrick de Kerckhove, "A New Perspective on the Alphabet" in Vice Versa (Dec. 1994)