![Spencerian example](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/Spencerian_example.jpg)
Cursive (also known as script, among other names) is any style of
penmanship
Penmanship is the technique of writing with the hand using a writing instrument. Today, this is most commonly done with a pen, or pencil, but throughout history has included many different implements. The various generic and formal histor ...
in which characters are written joined in a flowing manner, generally for the purpose of making writing faster, in contrast to
block letters
Block letters (known as printscript, manuscript, print writing or ball and stick in academics) are a sans-serif (or "gothic") style of writing Latin script in which the letters are individual glyphs, with no joining.
Elementary education in Eng ...
. It varies in functionality and modern-day usage across languages and regions; being used both publicly in artistic and formal documents as well as in private communication. Formal cursive is generally joined, but casual cursive is a combination of joins and pen lifts. The writing style can be further divided as "looped", "
italic" or "connected".
The cursive method is used with many alphabets due to infrequent pen lifting and beliefs that it increases writing speed. Despite this belief, more elaborate or ornamental styles of writing can be slower to reproduce. In some alphabets, many or all letters in a word are connected, sometimes making a word one single complex stroke.
A study of gradeschool children in 2013 discovered that the speed of their cursive writing is the same as their
print writing
Block letters (known as printscript, manuscript, print writing or ball and stick in academics) are a sans-serif (or "gothic") style of writing Latin script in which the letters are individual glyphs, with no joining.
Elementary education in Eng ...
, regardless of which handwriting the child had learnt first.
Descriptions
Cursive is a style of penmanship in which the symbols of the language are written in a
conjoined
Conjoined twins – sometimes popularly referred to as Siamese twins – are twins joined ''in utero''. A very rare phenomenon, the occurrence is estimated to range from 1 in 49,000 births to 1 in 189,000 births, with a somewhat higher incidence ...
and/or ''flowing'' manner, generally for the purpose of making writing faster. This writing style is distinct from "print-script" using
block letters
Block letters (known as printscript, manuscript, print writing or ball and stick in academics) are a sans-serif (or "gothic") style of writing Latin script in which the letters are individual glyphs, with no joining.
Elementary education in Eng ...
, in which the letters of a word are unconnected and in Roman/Gothic letter-form rather than joined-up script. Not all cursive
copybooks
A dōjinshi copybook or is a self-published and self-made work by fans or original fiction published using a copy machine.
Types
Copybooks are usually fan fiction featuring characters that are not the artist's own, but they can often feature orig ...
join all letters: formal cursive is generally joined, but casual cursive is a combination of joins and pen lifts. In the
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
,
Syriac Syriac may refer to:
*Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic
*Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region
* Syriac alphabet
** Syriac (Unicode block)
** Syriac Supplement
* Neo-Aramaic languages a ...
,
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
, and
Cyrillic
, bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця
, fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs
, fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic
, fam3 = Phoenician
, fam4 = G ...
alphabets, many or all letters in a word are connected (while others must not), sometimes making a word one single complex stroke. In
Hebrew cursive and
Roman cursive
Roman cursive (or Latin cursive) is a form of handwriting (or a script) used in ancient Rome and to some extent into the Middle Ages. It is customarily divided into old (or ancient) cursive and new cursive.
Old Roman cursive
Old Roman cursiv ...
, the letters are not connected. In Maharashtra, there was a version of cursive called
'Modi' to write
Marathi language
Marathi (; ''Marāṭhī'', ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language predominantly spoken by Marathi people in the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the official language of Maharashtra, and additional official language in the state o ...
.
Subclasses
Ligature
Ligature is writing the letters of words with lines connecting the letters so that one does not have to pick up the pen or pencil between letters. Commonly some of the letters are written in a looped manner to facilitate the connections. In common printed Greek texts, the modern small letter fonts are called "cursive" (as opposed to
uncial
Uncial is a majuscule Glaister, Geoffrey Ashall. (1996) ''Encyclopedia of the Book''. 2nd edn. New Castle, DE, and London: Oak Knoll Press & The British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one ...
) though the letters do not connect.
Looped
In ''looped cursive'' penmanship, some
ascenders and
descender
In typography and handwriting, a descender is the portion of a letter that extends below the baseline of a font.
For example, in the letter ''y'', the descender is the "tail", or that portion of the diagonal line which lies below the ''v'' c ...
s have loops which provide for joins. This is generally what people refer to when they say "cursive".
file:Looped cursive sample.jpg, alt=The first verse of "Good King Wenceslas" in cursive, Looped cursive as taught in Britain in the mid-20th century
Italic
''Cursive italic'' penmanship—derived from
chancery cursive
Italic script, also known as chancery cursive and Italic hand, is a semi-cursive, slightly sloped style of handwriting and calligraphy that was developed during the Renaissance in Italy. It is one of the most popular styles used in contemporary ...
—uses non-looped joins or no joins. In italic cursive, there are no joins from g, j, q, or y, and a few other joins are discouraged.
Italic penmanship became popular in the 15th-century Italian Renaissance. The term "italic" as it relates to handwriting is not to be confused with
italic type
In typography, italic type is a cursive font based on a stylised form of calligraphic handwriting. Owing to the influence from calligraphy, italics normally slant slightly to the right. Italics are a way to emphasise key points in a printed tex ...
d letters. Many, but not all, letters in the handwriting of the Renaissance were joined, as most are today in cursive italic.
Origin
The origins of the cursive method are associated with practical advantages of writing speed and infrequent pen-lifting to accommodate the limitations of the
quill
A quill is a writing tool made from a moulted flight feather (preferably a primary wing-feather) of a large bird. Quills were used for writing with ink before the invention of the dip pen, the metal- nibbed pen, the fountain pen, and, eventually ...
. Quills are fragile, easily broken, and will spatter unless used properly. They also run out of ink faster than most contemporary writing utensils. Steel
dip pen
A dip pen or nib pen or pen nib usually consists of a metal nib with capillary channels like those of fountain pen nibs, mounted in a handle or holder, often made of wood. Other materials can be used for the holder, including bone, metal and pla ...
s followed quills; they were sturdier, but still had some limitations. The individuality of the provenance of a document (see
Signature
A signature (; from la, signare, "to sign") is a handwritten (and often stylized) depiction of someone's name, nickname, or even a simple "X" or other mark that a person writes on documents as a proof of identity and intent. The writer of a ...
) was a factor also, as opposed to machine
font
In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a "sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design.
In mod ...
.
Cursive was also favored because the writing tool was rarely taken off the paper.
The term ''cursive'' derives from
Middle French
Middle French (french: moyen français) is a historical division of the French language that covers the period from the 14th to the 16th century. It is a period of transition during which:
* the French language became clearly distinguished from t ...
''cursif'' from
Medieval Latin
Medieval Latin was the form of Literary Latin used in Roman Catholic Western Europe during the Middle Ages. In this region it served as the primary written language, though local languages were also written to varying degrees. Latin functioned ...
''cursivus'', which literally means ''running''. This term in turn derives from
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
''currere'' ("to run, hasten"). Although the use of cursive appeared to be on the decline, it now seems to be coming back into use.
Bengali
![Bangla cursive](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Bangla_cursive.jpeg)
In
Bengali cursive script
Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to:
*something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia
* Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region
* Bengali language, the language they speak
** Bengali alphabet, the w ...
(also known in Bengali as "professional writing") the letters are more likely to be more curvy in appearance than in standard Bengali handwriting. Also, the horizontal supporting bar on each letter (
''matra'') runs continuously through the entire word, unlike in standard handwriting. This cursive handwriting often used by literature experts differs in appearance from the
standard Bengali alphabet as it is free hand writing, where sometimes the alphabets are complex and appear different from the standard handwriting.
Roman
![Hocgracili](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/Hocgracili.jpg)
''Roman cursive'' is a form of handwriting (or a
script
Script may refer to:
Writing systems
* Script, a distinctive writing system, based on a repertoire of specific elements or symbols, or that repertoire
* Script (styles of handwriting)
** Script typeface, a typeface with characteristics of handw ...
) used in
ancient Rome
In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 B ...
and to some extent into the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
. It is customarily divided into old (or ancient) cursive, and new cursive. Old Roman cursive, also called
majuscule
Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (or more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (or more formally ''minuscule'') in the written representation of certain languages. The writing ...
cursive and capitalis cursive, was the everyday form of handwriting used for writing letters, by merchants writing business accounts, by schoolchildren learning the
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the o ...
, and even by
emperors
An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereignty, sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), ...
issuing commands. New Roman, also called
minuscule cursive
Roman cursive (or Latin cursive) is a form of handwriting (or a script) used in ancient Rome and to some extent into the Middle Ages. It is customarily divided into old (or ancient) cursive and new cursive.
Old Roman cursive
Old Roman curs ...
or later cursive, developed from old cursive. It was used from approximately the 3rd century to the 7th century, and uses letter forms that are more recognizable to modern eyes; "a", "b", "d", and "e" have taken a more familiar shape, and the other letters are proportionate to each other rather than varying wildly in size and placement on a line.
Greek
![Greek manuscript cursive 6th century](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4e/Greek_manuscript_cursive_6th_century.png)
The
Greek alphabet
The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BCE. It is derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and was the earliest known alphabetic script to have distinct letters for vowels as we ...
has had several cursive forms in the course of its development. In antiquity, a cursive form of handwriting was used in writing on
papyrus
Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, '' Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'') can also refer to a ...
. It employed slanted and partly connected letter forms as well as many
ligatures. Some features of this handwriting were later adopted into Greek minuscule, the dominant form of handwriting in the medieval and early modern era. In the 19th and 20th centuries, an entirely new form of cursive Greek, more similar to contemporary Western European cursive scripts, was developed.
English
![Shakespeare-Testament](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/Shakespeare-Testament.jpg)
Cursive writing was used in English before the
Norman conquest
The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Conque ...
.
Anglo-Saxon Charters typically include a boundary clause written in
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
in a cursive script. A cursive handwriting style—
secretary hand
Secretary hand is a style of European handwriting developed in the early sixteenth century that remained common in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries for writing English, German, Welsh and Gaelic.
History
Predominating before the dominance ...
—was widely used for both personal correspondence and official documents in England from early in the 16th century.
Cursive handwriting developed into something approximating its current form from the 17th century, but its use was neither uniform, nor standardized either in England itself or elsewhere in the
British Empire
The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts esta ...
. In the English colonies of the early 17th century, most of the letters are clearly separated in the handwriting of
William Bradford, though a few were joined as in a cursive hand. In England itself, Edward Cocker had begun to introduce a version of the French ''
ronde'' style, which was then further developed and popularized throughout the
British Empire
The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts esta ...
in the 17th and 18th centuries as
round hand
Round hand (also roundhand) is a type of handwriting and calligraphy originating in England in the 1660s primarily by the writing masters John Ayres and William Banson. Characterised by an open flowing hand (style) and subtle contrast of thick an ...
by John Ayers and William Banson.
Cursive writing in the United Kingdom
Today there is no standardized
teaching script
A teaching script is a sample script that serves as a visual orientation for learning to write by hand. In the sense of a guideline or a prototype, it supports the demanding process of developing handwriting skills and abilities in a visual and i ...
stipulated in the various
national curriculum A national curriculum is a common programme of study in schools that is designed to ensure nationwide uniformity of content and standards in education. It is usually legislated by the national government, possibly in consultation with Federated stat ...
s for schools in the United Kingdom, only that one font style needs to be used consistently throughout the school.
[ Be School Ready – What Letter Font is Your Child’s School Teaching?]
online
, 29 August 2019, access date 30 March 2022 In both the Cursive and the Continuous Cursive writing styles, letters are created through joining lines and curve shapes in a particular way. Once pupils have learnt how to clearly form single letters, they are taught how single letters can be joined to form a flowing script.
[ Teach handwriting: The three handwriting stages]
, access date 30 March 2022
Characteristics of Cursive and Continuous Cursive scripts:
[ What's The Difference between Cursive and Continuous Cursive Handwriting Fonts?]
online
, 9 November 2017, access date 30 March 2022
Whether Cursive or Continuous Cursive is to be favoured remains a subject of debate. While many schools in the United Kingdom are opting to teach Continuous Cursive throughout the year groups, often starting in
Reception
Reception is a noun form of ''receiving'', or ''to receive'' something, such as art, experience, information, people, products, or vehicles. It may refer to:
Astrology
* Reception (astrology), when a planet is located in a sign ruled by another p ...
, critics have argued that conjoined writing styles leave many children struggling with the high level of gross and fine motor coordination required.
Cursive writing in North America
Development in the 18th and 19th centuries
In the American colonies, on the eve of their independence from the
Kingdom of Great Britain
The Kingdom of Great Britain (officially Great Britain) was a Sovereign state, sovereign country in Western Europe from 1 May 1707 to the end of 31 December 1800. The state was created by the 1706 Treaty of Union and ratified by the Acts of ...
, it is notable that
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 18 ...
joined most, but not all the letters when drafting the
United States Declaration of Independence
The United States Declaration of Independence, formally The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen States of America, is the pronouncement and founding document adopted by the Second Continental Congress meeting at Pennsylvania State House ...
. However, a few days later,
Timothy Matlack professionally re-wrote the presentation copy of the Declaration in a fully joined, cursive hand. Eighty-seven years later, in the middle of the 19th century,
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...
drafted the
Gettysburg Address
The Gettysburg Address is a Public speaking, speech that President of the United States, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln delivered during the American Civil War at the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery, Soldiers' National Cemetery, ...
in a cursive hand that would not look out of place today.
Not all such cursive, then or now, joined all of the letters within a word.
![HandwritingOfOneJohnJay(NotTheFamousOne)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/HandwritingOfOneJohnJay%28NotTheFamousOne%29.jpg)
In both the British Empire and the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries, before the typewriter, professionals used cursive for their correspondence. This was called a "fair hand", meaning it looked good, and firms trained their clerks to write in exactly the same script.
In the early days of the
post office
A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional serv ...
, letters were written in cursive – and to fit more text on a single sheet, the text was continued in lines
crossing at 90 degrees from the original text. Block letters were not suitable for this.
Although women's handwriting had noticeably different particulars from men's, the general forms were not prone to rapid change. In the mid-19th century, most children were taught the contemporary cursive; in the United States, this usually occurred in second or third grade (around ages seven to nine). Few simplifications appeared as the middle of the 20th century approached.
After the 1960s, a movement originally begun by
Paul Standard in the 1930s to replace looped cursive with cursive italic penmanship resurfaced. It was motivated by the claim that cursive instruction was more difficult than it needed to be: that conventional (looped) cursive was unnecessary, and it was easier to write in cursive italic. Because of this, various new forms of cursive italic appeared, including
Getty-Dubay Italic
Getty-Dubay Italic is a modern teaching script for handwriting based on Latin script, developed in 1976 in Portland, Oregon, by Barbara Getty and Inga Dubay with the aim of allowing learners to make an easier transition from print writing to ...
, and
Barchowsky Fluent Handwriting
Barchowsky Fluent Handwriting (BFH) is a modern teaching script for handwriting based on Latin script, developed in the late 20th century by Nan Jay Barchowsky in Maryland, US, with the aim of allowing learners to make an easier transition from ...
. In the 21st century, some of the surviving cursive writing styles are
Spencerian,
Palmer Method,
D'Nealian
The D'Nealian Method (sometimes misspelled ''Denealian''), is a style of writing and teaching handwriting based on Latin script which was developed between 1965 and 1978 by Donald N. Thurber (1927–2020) in Michigan, United States. Building on hi ...
, and
Zaner-Bloser script.
Decline of English cursive in the United States
![Looped cursive alphabet](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/Looped_cursive_alphabet.jpg)
One of the earliest forms of new technology that caused the decline of handwriting was the invention of the
ballpoint pen
A ballpoint pen, also known as a biro (British English), ball pen (Hong Kong, Indian and Philippine English), or dot pen ( Nepali) is a pen that dispenses ink (usually in paste form) over a metal ball at its point, i.e. over a "ball point". ...
, patented in 1888 by John Loud. Two brothers,
László
László () is a Hungarian male given name and surname after the King-Knight Saint Ladislaus I of Hungary (1077–1095). It derives from Ladislav, a variant of Vladislav. Other versions are Lessl or Laszly. The name has a history of being frequen ...
and György Bíró, further developed the pen by changing the design and using different ink that dried quickly. With their design, it was guaranteed that the ink would not smudge, as it would with the earlier design of pen, and it no longer required the careful penmanship one would use with the older design of pen. After World War II, the ballpoint pen was mass-produced and sold for a cheap price, changing the way people wrote. Over time the emphasis of using the style of cursive to write slowly declined, only to be later impacted by other technologies such as the phone, computer, and keyboard.
Cursive has been in decline throughout the 21st century due to its perceived lack of necessity. The Fairfax Education Association, the largest teachers' union in Fairfax County, Virginia, has called cursive a "dying art". Many consider cursive too tedious to learn and believe that it is not a useful skill.
On the 2006
SAT
The SAT ( ) is a standardized test widely used for college admissions in the United States. Since its debut in 1926, its name and scoring have changed several times; originally called the Scholastic Aptitude Test, it was later called the Schol ...
, a United States post-secondary education entrance exam, only 15 percent of the students wrote their essay answers in cursive.
However, students might be discouraged from using cursive on standardized tests due to exams written in hard-to-read handwriting receiving lower marks, and some graders may have difficulties reading cursive.
In 2007, a survey of 200 teachers of first through third grades in all 50 American states, 90 percent of respondents said their schools required the teaching of cursive.
A nationwide survey in 2008 found elementary school teachers lacking formal training in teaching handwriting to students. Only 12 percent of teachers reported having taken a course in how to teach it.
In 2012, the American states of
Indiana
Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...
and
Hawaii
Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...
announced that their schools will no longer be required to teach cursive (but will still be permitted to), and instead will be required to teach "keyboard proficiency". Since the nationwide proposal of the
Common Core State Standards
The Common Core State Standards Initiative, also known as simply Common Core, is an educational initiative from 2010 that details what K–12 students throughout the United States should know in English language arts and mathematics at the concl ...
in 2009, which do not include instruction in cursive, the standards have been adopted by 44 states as of July 2011, all of which have debated whether to augment them with cursive.
In a 2022 article in
The Atlantic
''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science.
It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...
, historian and former Harvard University president
Drew Gilpin Faust
Catharine Drew Gilpin Faust (born September 18, 1947) is an American historian and was the 28th president of Harvard University, the first woman to serve in that role. She was Harvard's first president since 1672 without an undergraduate or gradu ...
noted that the
Gen Z
Generation Z (or more commonly Gen Z for short), colloquially known as zoomers, is the Western demographic cohort succeeding Millennials and preceding Generation Alpha. Researchers and popular media use the mid-to-late 1990s as starting birt ...
never learned to read and write cursive.
Conservation efforts and effects on the learning disabled
Many historical documents, such as the United States Constitution, are written in cursive—some argue the inability to read cursive therefore precludes one from being able to fully appreciate such documents in their original format. Despite the decline in the day-to-day use of cursive, it is being reintroduced to the curriculum of schools in the United States. States such as
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
,
Idaho
Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyom ...
,
Kansas
Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the ...
,
,
North Carolina
North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...
,
South Carolina
)''Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no)
, anthem = " Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind"
, Former = Province of South Carolina
, seat = Columbia
, LargestCity = Charleston
, LargestMetro = ...
,
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
, and
Tennessee
Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...
have already mandated cursive in schools as a part of the Back to Basics program designed to maintain the integrity of cursive handwriting. Cursive instruction is required by grade 5 in Illinois, starting with the 2018–2019 school year. Some argue that cursive is not worth teaching in schools and "in the 1960s cursive was implemented because of preference and not an educational basis; Hawaii and Indiana have replaced cursive instruction with 'keyboard proficiency' and 44 other states are currently weighing similar measures."
Students with
dyslexia
Dyslexia, also known until the 1960s as word blindness, is a disorder characterized by reading below the expected level for one's age. Different people are affected to different degrees. Problems may include difficulties in spelling words, r ...
, who have difficulty learning to read because their brains have difficulty associating sounds and letter combinations efficiently, have found that cursive can help them with the decoding process because it integrates hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills and other brain and memory functions. However, students with
dysgraphia
Dysgraphia is a learning disability of written expression, which affects the ability to write, primarily handwriting, but also coherence. It is a specific learning disability (SLD) as well as a transcription disability, meaning that it is a wri ...
may be badly served, or even substantially hindered, by demands for cursive.
German
Up to the 19th century, (also known as ''German cursive'') was used in German-language longhand. Kurrent was not used exclusively, but rather in parallel to modern cursive (which is the same as English cursive). Writers used both cursive styles: location, contents and context of the text determined which style to use. A successor of , , was widely used in the period 1911–1941 until the Nazi Party banned it and its printed equivalent . German speakers brought up with continued to use it well into the post-war period.
Today, three different styles of cursive writing are taught in German schools, the (introduced in 1953), the (1968), and the (1969). The German National Primary Schoolteachers' Union has proposed replacing all three with , a simplified form of non-cursive handwriting adopted by
Hamburg
(male), (female) en, Hamburger(s),
Hamburgian(s)
, timezone1 = Central (CET)
, utc_offset1 = +1
, timezone1_DST = Central (CEST)
, utc_offset1_DST = +2
, postal ...
schools.
Russian
![Russian Cursive Cyrillic](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Russian_Cursive_Cyrillic.svg)
The ''Russian Cursive
Cyrillic
, bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця
, fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs
, fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic
, fam3 = Phoenician
, fam4 = G ...
'' alphabet is used (instead of
the block letters) when handwriting the modern
Russian language
Russian (russian: русский язык, russkij jazyk, link=no, ) is an East Slavic languages, East Slavic language mainly spoken in Russia. It is the First language, native language of the Russians, and belongs to the Indo-European langua ...
. While several letters resemble Latin counterparts, many of them represent different sounds. Most handwritten Russian, especially personal letters and schoolwork, uses the cursive Russian (Cyrillic) alphabet, although use of block letters in private writing has been rising. Most children in Russian schools are taught in the 1st grade how to write using this Russian script.
Chinese
Cursive forms of
Chinese characters
Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as ''kanji' ...
are used in calligraphy; "running script" is the
semi-cursive
Semi-cursive script (), also known as running hand script, is a style of calligraphy which emerged in China during the Han dynasty (3rd century BC – 3rd century AD). The style is used to write Chinese characters and is abbreviated slightly wh ...
form and "
rough script" (mistakenly called "grass script" due to literal misinterpretation) is the cursive. The running aspect of this script has more to do with the formation and connectedness of strokes ''within'' an individual character than with connections between characters as in Western connected cursive. The latter are rare in
hanzi
Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as ''kanji' ...
and in the derived Japanese
kanji
are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...
characters which are usually well separated by the writer.
File:Semi-cursive style Calligraphy of Chinese poem by Mo Ruzhong.jpg, Semi-cursive style Calligraphy of Chinese poem by Mo Ruzheng
File:CMOC Treasures of Ancient China exhibit - classical poem in cursive script.jpg, Classical poem in cursive script at Treasures of Ancient China exhibit
File:Cursive characters dragon.jpg, Eight cursive characters for dragon
File:Calligraphy of Cursive and Semi-cursive styleby Dong Qichang.jpg, Calligraphy of both cursive and semi-cursive by Dong Qichang
Dong Qichang (; courtesy name Xuanzai (玄宰); 1555–1636), was a Chinese painter, calligrapher, politician, and art theorist of the later period of the Ming dynasty.
Life as a scholar and calligrapher
Dong Qichang was a native of Hua Ting (l ...
File:Quatrain on Heavenly Mountain.jpg, Four columns in cursive script quatrain
A quatrain is a type of stanza, or a complete poem, consisting of four lines.
Existing in a variety of forms, the quatrain appears in poems from the poetic traditions of various ancient civilizations including Persia, Ancient India, Ancient Greec ...
poem, Quatrain on Heavenly Mountain. Attributed to Emperor Gaozong of Song
Emperor Gaozong of Song (12 June 1107 – 9 November 1187), personal name Zhao Gou, courtesy name Deji, was the tenth emperor of the Song dynasty and the first of the Southern Song period, ruling between 1127 and 1162 and retaining power as ret ...
, the tenth Chinese Emperor of the Song Dynasty
The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. The Song conquered the rest ...
File:ZhiYong1000charcter.jpg, One page of the album "Thousand Character classic in formal and Cursive script" attributed to Zhi Yong
Examples
File:Greek Handwriting-aaa3.png, Table of 19th-century Greek cursive letter forms
File:Carta-caminha.png, Letter to Manuel I of Portugal by Pêro Vaz de Caminha reporting the discovery of Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
(1 May 1500)
File:Lessing Kleist-Brief.jpg, A letter from Lessing to Kleist Kleist, or von Kleist, is a surname.
von Kleist:
*August von Kleist (1818–1890), Prussian Major General
*Conrad von Kleist (1839-1900), German politician (German Conservative Party), member of Reichstag
*Ewald Georg von Kleist (ca. 1700–1748), ...
, written in Kurrent
() is an old form of German-language handwriting based on late medieval cursive writing, also known as ("cursive script"), ("German script") and ''German cursive''. Over the history of its use into the first part of the 20th century, many ...
(14 March 1758)
File:United States Declaration of Independence.jpg, United States Declaration of Independence
The United States Declaration of Independence, formally The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen States of America, is the pronouncement and founding document adopted by the Second Continental Congress meeting at Pennsylvania State House ...
(4 July 1776)
File:Bold running hand script exemplar by Joseph Carstairs published 1820.jpg, Bold running hand exemplar by English chirographer Joseph Carstairs (1820)
File:Spencerian example.jpg, Example of classic American business handwriting known as Spencerian script
Spencerian script is a script style based on Copperplate script that was used in the United States from approximately 1850 to 1925, and was considered the American ''de facto'' standard writing style for business correspondence prior to the wide ...
(1884)
See also
*
Asemic writing Asemic may refer to:
* Asemia
Asemia is the term for the medical condition of being unable to understand or express any signs or symbols.
It is a more severe condition than aphasia, which is the inability to understand linguistic signs. Asemia i ...
*
Bastarda
Bastarda (or bastard) was a blackletter script used in France, the Burgundian Netherlands and Germany during the 14th and 15th centuries. The Burgundian variant of script can be seen as the court script of the Dukes of Burgundy.
The early pri ...
*
Blackletter
Blackletter (sometimes black letter), also known as Gothic script, Gothic minuscule, or Textura, was a script used throughout Western Europe from approximately 1150 until the 17th century. It continued to be commonly used for the Danish, Norweg ...
*
Book hand
A book hand was any of several stylized handwriting scripts used during ancient and medieval times. It was intended for legibility and often used in transcribing official documents (prior to the development of printing and similar technologies). ...
*
Calligraphy
Calligraphy (from el, link=y, καλλιγραφία) is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a pen, ink brush, or other writing instrument. Contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined as "t ...
*
Chancery hand
The term "chancery hand" can refer to either of two distinct styles of historical handwriting.
A chancery hand was at first a form of handwriting for business transactions that developed in the Lateran chancery (the ) of the 13th century, th ...
*
Court hand
Court hand (also common law hand, Anglicana, cursiva antiquior, charter hand) was a style of handwriting used in medieval English law courts, and later by professionals such as lawyers and clerks. "It is noticeably upright and packed together with ...
*
Cursive script (East Asia)
Cursive script (; , ''sōshotai''; , ''choseo''; ), often mistranslated as grass script, is a script style used in Chinese and East Asian calligraphy. It is an umbrella term for the cursive variants of the clerical script and the regular scri ...
(Grass script)
*
D'Nealian Method
The D'Nealian Method (sometimes misspelled ''Denealian''), is a style of writing and teaching handwriting based on Latin script which was developed between 1965 and 1978 by Donald N. Thurber (1927–2020) in Michigan, United States. Building on h ...
*
Emphasis (typography)
In typography, emphasis is the strengthening of words in a text with a font in a different style from the rest of the text, to highlight them. It is the equivalent of prosody stress in speech.
Methods and use
The most common methods in W ...
*
Hand (writing style)
Calligraphy (from el, link=y, καλλιγραφία) is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a pen, ink brush, or other writing instrument. Contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined as "t ...
*
Handwriting
Handwriting is the writing done with a writing instrument, such as a pen or pencil, in the hand. Handwriting includes both printing and cursive styles and is separate from formal calligraphy or typeface
A typeface (or font family) is ...
*
Hieratic
Hieratic (; grc, ἱερατικά, hieratiká, priestly) is the name given to a cursive writing system used for Ancient Egyptian and the principal script used to write that language from its development in the third millennium BC until the ris ...
and
Cursive hieroglyphs
Cursive hieroglyphs, or hieroglyphic book hand, are a form of Egyptian hieroglyphs commonly used for handwritten religious documents, such as the Book of the Dead. This style of writing was typically written with ink and a reed brush on papyrus, w ...
*
History of writing
The history of writing traces the development of expressing language by systems of markings and how these markings were used for various purposes in different societies, thereby transforming social organization. Writing systems are the foundati ...
*
Italic script
Italic script, also known as chancery cursive and Italic hand, is a semi-cursive, slightly sloped style of handwriting and calligraphy that was developed during the Renaissance in Italy. It is one of the most popular styles used in contemporary ...
*
Palaeography
Palaeography (American and British English spelling differences#ae and oe, UK) or paleography (American and British English spelling differences#ae and oe, US; ultimately from grc-gre, , ''palaiós'', "old", and , ''gráphein'', "to write") ...
*
Palmer Method
*
Paper
Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distributed ...
*
Pen
A pen is a common writing instrument that applies ink to a surface, usually paper, for writing or drawing. Early pens such as reed pens, quill pens, dip pens and ruling pens held a small amount of ink on a nib or in a small void or cavity whic ...
*
Penmanship
Penmanship is the technique of writing with the hand using a writing instrument. Today, this is most commonly done with a pen, or pencil, but throughout history has included many different implements. The various generic and formal histor ...
*
Ronde script (calligraphy)
('round' in French) is a kind of script in which the heavy strokes are nearly upright, giving the characters when taken together a round look. It appeared in France at the end of the 16th century, growing out from a late local variant of Gothi ...
*
Rotunda (script)
The Rotunda is a specific medieval blackletter script. It originates in Carolingian minuscule. Sometimes, it is not considered a blackletter script, but a script on its own. It was used mainly in southern Europe.
Characteristics
One of the ke ...
*
Round hand
Round hand (also roundhand) is a type of handwriting and calligraphy originating in England in the 1660s primarily by the writing masters John Ayres and William Banson. Characterised by an open flowing hand (style) and subtle contrast of thick an ...
*
Secretary hand
Secretary hand is a style of European handwriting developed in the early sixteenth century that remained common in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries for writing English, German, Welsh and Gaelic.
History
Predominating before the dominance ...
*
Shorthand
Shorthand is an abbreviated symbolic writing method that increases speed and brevity of writing as compared to longhand, a more common method of writing a language. The process of writing in shorthand is called stenography, from the Greek ''ste ...
*
Spencerian Method
Spencerian script is a script style based on Copperplate script that was used in the United States from approximately 1850 to 1925, and was considered the American ''de facto'' standard writing style for business correspondence prior to the wid ...
*
Sütterlin
(, " script") is the last widely used form of , the historical form of German handwriting that evolved alongside German blackletter (most notably ') typefaces. Graphic artist Ludwig Sütterlin was commissioned by the Prussian Ministry of Scien ...
and
Kurrent
() is an old form of German-language handwriting based on late medieval cursive writing, also known as ("cursive script"), ("German script") and ''German cursive''. Over the history of its use into the first part of the 20th century, many ...
– German Cursive
*
Zaner-Bloser Method
The Zaner-Bloser (also Zaner-Bloser Method) is a teaching script for handwriting based on Latin script as well as a system of penmanship instruction, which originated around 1904 at the Zanerian College of Penmanship in Columbus, Ohio. Charles P. ...
Notes
References
External links
The Golden Age of American Penmanship including scans of the January 1932 issue of
Austin Norman Palmer's ''American Penman''
Normal and Bold Victorian Modern Cursive electronic fonts for downloading a ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' magazine article on the demise of cursive handwriting
Op-Art: The Write Stuff a ''New York Times'' article on the advantages of italic hand over both full cursive and block printing
The Society for Italic Handwriting supporters of teaching a simplified cursive hand
Has Technology Killed Cursive Handwriting?Mashable
Mashable is a digital media platform, news website and entertainment company founded by Pete Cashmore in 2005.
History
Mashable was founded by Pete Cashmore while living in Aberdeen, Scotland, in July 2005. Early iterations of the site were a ...
, 11 June 2013
Why Cursive Still Matters in EducationCursive Coming Back in the US SchoolsHausam's practical writing course. 1917State Library of Kansas' KGI Online Library
{{Authority control
Calligraphy
Penmanship
Writing
Western calligraphy