# What Is The Connection Between "Rights" (Legal/Moral) and "Right" (Side of Something)

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-connection-between-rights-legal-moral-and-right-side-of-something/832458>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 12, 2019, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-connection-between-rights-legal-moral-and-right-side-of-something/832458 "2019-04-12T20:39:09Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 7\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\
**Post date:** [April 12, 2019, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-connection-between-rights-legal-moral-and-right-side-of-something/832458/1 "2019-04-12T20:39:09Z")

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English, French and Spanish, almost certainly among others, have the same word for “right” as in the right side of your body, and “right” as in a legal or moral right (you have the right to remain silent).

Two questions:

1. Is this true across other, non-Romance languages?
2. What is the etymological connection between the concepts?

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**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\
**Post date:** [April 12, 2019, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-connection-between-rights-legal-moral-and-right-side-of-something/832458/2 "2019-04-12T21:05:51Z")

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Summary from [www.etymonline.com](http://www.etymonline.com) :

PIE \*_reg-_ (“move in a straight line; to put right”) \> Proto-Germanic \*_rehtan_ \> Old English \*riht \*“just, good, fair; proper, fitting; straight, not bent, direct, erect” \> English _right_ (“morally correct; opposite of left; etc.”).

(The right hand is the “proper” hand since a majority favors that hand.)

Right and Left as political terms are borrowed (with translation) from French: in the French National Assembly in 1789 the nobility took the seats on the President’s right and left the Third Estate to sit on the left.

In French, _droit_ has the same multiple meanings. This French word derives from Latin _directus_; that word also derives from the the PIE root \*\*reg-\*.

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**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\
**Post date:** [April 12, 2019, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-connection-between-rights-legal-moral-and-right-side-of-something/832458/3 "2019-04-12T21:20:18Z")

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> [@HeyHomie](#):
>
> English, French and Spanish, almost certainly among others, have the same word for “right” as in the right side of your body, and “right” as in a legal or moral right (you have the right to remain silent).
> 
> Two questions:
> 
> 1. Is this true across other, non-Romance languages?
> 2. What is the etymological connection between the concepts?

The relationship certainly exists in Finnish, which is a non-Indo-European language. oikea means “right” as in “right hand”; as well as “right” as in “right answer” (correct, fair or true); oikeus is a “right” as in an entitlement.

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**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\
**Post date:** [April 12, 2019, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-connection-between-rights-legal-moral-and-right-side-of-something/832458/4 "2019-04-12T21:25:30Z")

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The Irish word for right comes from a different origin (the same as the Latin word dexter), but it has a similar range of meaning (as well as meaning “south” and “nice” or “agreeable” in modern Irish).

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**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\
**Post date:** [April 12, 2019, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-connection-between-rights-legal-moral-and-right-side-of-something/832458/5 "2019-04-12T21:57:39Z")

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> [@hibernicus](#):
>
> The relationship certainly exists in Finnish, which is a non-Indo-European language. oikea means “right” as in “right hand”; as well as “right” as in “right answer” (correct, fair or true); oikeus is a “right” as in an entitlement.

Works in Polish (which is Indo-European, but not Romance) with _pravo_.

In Hungarian (a non-Indo-European language related to Finnish) they do look similar, though I don’t know what their etymology is. “Right” is _jobb_; “rights” is _jogok_ (singular it would be _jog_.) “Good” is _jó_, and “better” is _jobb_, just like the directional definition of “right.” It seems like they are interrelated, but I’ve never researched the roots. Somebody like **Johanna** , though, I’m sure would know, as she knows quite a bit about languages in general, and also Finno-Ugric ones (or whatever the current classification is) in particular.

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**Author:** ![aethelred](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@aethelred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aethelred)\
**Post date:** [April 19, 2019, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-connection-between-rights-legal-moral-and-right-side-of-something/832458/6 "2019-04-19T04:55:32Z")

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Re the specific examples of Finnish and Hungarian, there is a fair amount of evidence of lexicon borrowing relatively far back (\<\< 1000 CE anyway) from IE languages into Uralic (or Finno-Ugric if you prefer - it’s been a long time but I think the difference between the two is more or less the position of Samoyedic). ISTR some people who studied it thinking that there might have been an IE/Uralic sprachbund. I suppose there could be a semantic equivalent to a sprachbund.

Is there a comparative linguist in the house? Does the semantic carry over into in the Indo-Iranian branches too?

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**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\
**Post date:** [April 19, 2019, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-connection-between-rights-legal-moral-and-right-side-of-something/832458/7 "2019-04-19T05:07:01Z")

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> [@hibernicus](#):
>
> The relationship certainly exists in Finnish, which is a non-Indo-European language. oikea means “right” as in “right hand”; as well as “right” as in “right answer” (correct, fair or true); oikeus is a “right” as in an entitlement.

Basque as well. [From Elhuyar,](https://hiztegiak.elhuyar.eus/es_eu/derecho) I went ES-\>EU because I wanted to see what happens with other meanings of the Spanish word _derecho_.

“right side”: _eskuineko, eskuin_  
“human rights and so forth”: _eskubide_

“straight” (direction, position, “straight and narrow kind of person”): _zuzen_  
“legal system”: _zuzenbide_  
“law school”: _Zuzenbide Fakultatea_

“the good side” (the side of a piece of cloth that should show, in their own example): _aurki_

I expect that the etymological connection has to do with the association of sinister and evil/nasty, dexterous and good/useful/skilled. Dexter, right, is good; sinister, left, is bad. Something which is good, rightfully done, is done on the “dextra” side. But this is just a WAG from a non-linguist.