Origin of left = evil

[chula]

This seemed like something that Cecil would have covered, but my search of the archives and the board didn’t turn up the answer. What is the origin of the association between left (especially left-handedness) and negative traits (i.e., gauche, sinister, etc.)?

[Ice_Wolf]

One theory:

Sources as to why this is the case are hazy, but there are a number of indications that it stems from misogyny through the historical association of the left side of the body with femaleness.
<snip>
Other correspondences surface in the study of medieval coats of arms, where a bar slanting to the left signified bastardy – someone who reckoned their lineage through their mother. This bar was also called a bar sinister.

The word “sinister” is almost verbatim the latin word for left-handed. (Dexter meant right-handed.) Through religious antipathy to the left hand, the modern meanings of these words as “evil” and “able” became more common. This has the amusing result of illuminating the meaning of the word ambidextrous – “right handed on both sides.” Even other languages suffered from this – the word left is from an old saxon word “lyft,” meaning worthless. In French, left is “gauche,” also meaning clumsy.

[Walloon]

I can’t find any bias against left-handedness in the Old Testament. Some examples of left-right equality:

Song of Solomon 8:3 O that his left hand were under my head, and that his right hand embraced me!

Isaiah 30:21 And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.

Isaiah 54:3 For you will spread abroad to the right and to the left, and your descendants will possess the nations and will people the desolate cities.

Daniel 12:7 The man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the stream, raised his right hand and his left hand toward heaven; and I heard him swear by him who lives for ever that it would be for a time, two times, and half a time; and that when the shattering of the power of the holy people comes to an end all these things would be accomplished.

The New Testament is initially unbiased to the left or right:

Matthew 20:23 [Jesus] said to them, “You will drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.”

But in talking about the Last Judgment, Jesus uses this metaphor:

Matthew 25:32-41. . . All the nations will be assembled before him. Then he will separpate them into two groups, as a shepherd separate sheep from goats. The sheep he will place at his right hand, but the goats at the left. . . Then he will say to those at his left hand, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels!”

But that is an anomaly; the remainder of the New Testament shows no bias:

2 Corinthians 6:4-7 . . . In all that we do we strive to present ourselves as ministers of God . . . as men with the message of truth and the power of God; wielding the weapons of righteousness with right hand and left

Revelation 10:2 [The mighty angel] had a little scroll open in his hand. And he set his right foot on the sea, and his left foot on the land

[Planet_of_the_Shapes]

I read a book once that suggested it may have to do with the structure of our brains. The left side of our body is controlled by the right hemisphere, and vice versa. The right hemisphere is more pattern recognising, and “intuitive”, where as the left hemisphere is more logical. The left hemisphere also controls language. This guy suggested that the bias in language favouring the right side might have something to do with this. The left hemisphere would associate itself with the right side of the body, and with being on the right.

Its a bit of a whacky theory i guess, but its quite interesting too.

[Shalmanese]

Uh, could it simply be that the majority of people are right-handed therefore left-handed people must of been evil deviants?

[Noone_Special]

*Originally posted by Walloon *
**I can’t find any bias against left-handedness in the Old Testament. **

Almost, but not quite, true. While the Hebrew for left, smol, has no derogatory connotation (although in moderm Hebrew it is punned to match the English “small” all the time ), the Hebrew word for right, yemin, has a secondary meaning of “Power” or “Virility”.

The phrase “Yemin ha-shem ossa khayil” (the Right hand of the Lord [roughly “succeeds”]) also comes to mind, although I’m not quite sure from memory whether this is biblical or rabbinical (i.e., later…)

Dan Abarbanel

[Walloon]

Since the neurological structure of the brain’s hemispheres was something not known until the 20th century, it can’t be the origin of this anti-left bias, which goes back at least two millennia.

[Avarie537]

IIRC from my Latin class, it also has connections with shaking hands.

You shook right hands upon meeting to show/prove that you had no weapon, but if you were left-handed, you could still wield your weapon. Therefore, left-handed = evil and devious!!

(It’s been a few years since I took the class, but I believe that’s what I remember.)