handwriting

[eyeballmassage]

lately i've been wondering- do people's handwritings have "accents"? for example, when people whose native languages use latin alphabets write in cyrillic, are there patterns that native speakers of languages that use cyrillic notice? what about the other way around? this goes for any other scripts, as well. finally, if anyone has any

Comments

[annkari]

From postcards I got from people in the US, I know that the longhand taught in the US is different from the German version, but I don't have time to google for images right now.

[aurynne]

Yes, I can always (well, not always, but quite frequently) recognize an Italian writing in English. They (again, I imagine this applies to people my age or so, so that would be those in their 20s and 30s) seem to have been taught a very particular way of writing the letters...
I also noticed there is a similarity in handwriting among Germans writing English and Russians writing English.
Americans seem to use small caps in handwriting in a way that only they do..
And all new immigrants in Israel have a clear "new immigrant" handwriting in Hebrew.

[akibare]

Do they have sort of round, vertical, fat sort of letters? I remember as a kid seeing a notebook from a girl who went to Italian school, and all the exercises were carefully copying that style of writing. I remember being surprised it was different from what my mother taught me, which was the American(?) "Palmer method."

I've since seen other Italian writing that looked like that too, it was kinda cool.

[allegrox]

Do you mean that American capitals are smaller, or that small capitals replace lowercase? My capitals are kind of short and squat, but that wasn't really the way I was taught. They used to be huge and overpowering, but since I've modified them, they don't interrupt the texture of my writing so much.
As for the latter option, I've only known a few people (maybe three) to use capitals instead of lowercase, and it looks very strange.

[doctorfedora]

She means that a lot of Americans use small caps in place of lowercase. It's primarily a masculine trait -- I've never met a woman who writes in all caps, whereas I do it because I can write faster and still be at least somewhat legible. : )

[mistress_elaine]

Handwriting certainly differs from country to country. Even allowing for personal variations, I think there is such a thing as a typically Dutch handwriting, a typically German handwriting, etc. Personally, I can recognise German handwriting from miles off (the numbers are particularly telling), and don't get me started on Filipino handwritings. They're in a league of their own.

[lemur_man]

It's not hard to spot German handwriting in any language if they do that silly thing where 'u' and 'n' are identical so 'u' needs a little line over it to distinguish it. Um, maybe think about making the two letters look different?

I find most Dutch people's handwriting to be hideous because they mix up LoweRcase anD capiTaLs foR no gooD ReasoN.

[mistress_elaine]

Yeah, the U/N thing is bizarre. There are other tell-tale signs, though. The German R tends to be quite characteristic, as does the number one.

I agree on modern Dutch handwriting. The sloppy mixing-up of capitals and lower-case letters is another one of those things which have convinced me that the Dutch simply don't care about language (are you reading this, muckefuck?). I also find many Dutch people's handwriting too round and childish for my taste. However, I do like good, proper old-fashioned Dutch handwriting -- the way people were taught to write in the first half of the twentieth century. The standard handwriting of people who went to school between, say, 1910 and 1960 is quite beautiful. Elegant, even.

[nimuroji]

I can't speak for anyone else, but the French seem to have a very distinctive writing; looks similar to their language I always thought.

[_rainymorning]

I agree totally, I love French handwriting but when you see a French person write something in English, it's so obviously written by a French person regardless of the standard of English.

[sovevuni]

I too agree.

[sensation_rag]

Me too. It looks beautiful.

[spamsink]

When a few years ago I sent a sample of my English handwriting (my first script was Cyrillic) for a free graphological analysis (in the U.S.), the result was that I must be paraplegic (apparently because of the way I write 's' - like a lightning bolt). They guessed my Zodiac sign correctly, though.