Scholars are unsure exactly when languages started being written from left to right, like modern-day English. There is some (inconclusive) evidence that Cuneiform started being written from left to right to prevent right-handed scholars from smudging the ink while writing.

Regardless, today, most languages are read from left to right. There are a few read the opposite way, from right to left:

• Hebrew
• Arabic
• Persian
• Urdu

There’s even an ancient form of writing called boustrophedon that alternates which direction it’s read on alternate lines—eg. Left to right, then right to left. Reading text in boustrophedon would be like following a snake down the page.

Of course, character-based languages like Chinese and Japanese can vary the direction their texts are read. Traditional Chinese texts were often read in vertical columns starting at the top right-hand side of a page. However, these languages have started mimicking Western languages by being read left to right.