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Backtrack-Free Cursive

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Re: Backtrack-Free Cursive

#31

Post by tomtomtom777 »

vanderZwan wrote: post #23
sollniss wrote: post #17

The t I've learned in school in the 90s is a single stroke. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schulausgangsschrift

Hey, that's the same one I was taught in the Netherlands in the late 80s! It seems to have been replaced with an English-style in recent decades though, is that the case in Germany as well?

Yes. This seems mostly the same for lower-case, except we made a lower loop on the f as well making at one stroke.

Also, our capitals were a bit more complicated, such as having 3 loops in the H.

Re: Backtrack-Free Cursive

#32

Post by vova_hn2 »

a115ltd wrote: post #18

This is unrelated to the main thesis of the article, but worth pointing out as too many people equate the Cyrillic script with Russian language. The Cyrillic script was invented in Bulgaria (during the First Bulgarian Empire), and was used to write Bulgarian language, creating a huge literary corpus, long before it began spreading to Kievan Rus. The Russian language itself comes from Old Bulgarian / Old Church Slavon…

> The Russian language itself comes from Old Bulgarian / Old Church Slavonic, as does Serbian and other "Slavic" languages.

Also, Bulgaria used to own all the land in the world, but because Bulgarians are very kind people, they gave some of it to other nations so that they have a place to live too. Thank you, Bulgarians!

Re: Backtrack-Free Cursive

#33

Post by sollniss »

vanderZwan wrote: post #23
sollniss wrote: post #17

The t I've learned in school in the 90s is a single stroke. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schulausgangsschrift

Hey, that's the same one I was taught in the Netherlands in the late 80s! It seems to have been replaced with an English-style in recent decades though, is that the case in Germany as well?

According to the wiki, the Schulausgangsschrift is mandatory in 5 states and optional in 4 states (out of 16) (probably on a school/teacher level). So it still seems to be taught in some places.

Re: Backtrack-Free Cursive

#34

Post by Laurel1234 »

weinzierl wrote: post #29

I really like the result. Especially the i and j with the connected dot. I expected them to look off but they really integrate nicely. That being said I don't think it is about Cyrillic vs Latin but more about traditional cursive vs modern. The traditional Latin cursives were all pretty much optimized to be written in one running flow. Kurrent and cursive all come from Latin currere which means running . Admittedly n…

> With traditional cursive you do your upstroke, lift the pen, place the dot (or short short stroke), reverse and do the downstroke.

I do it like this, backtracking to add a dot doesn't seem so bad when you're lifting the pen anyways and it doesn't break the flow.

It's been a minute since I've had to write very quickly, but I'd imagine if necessary this step can be skipped. Would have to try it out.

Re: Backtrack-Free Cursive

#35

Post by aitchnyu »

vanderZwan wrote: post #10

Huh, I just indirectly learned from this article that the way I write a lower-case "t" in cursive is a Dutch way of doing so ( edit: sollniss' comment implies it was a common style in Germany too). A quick search suggests it has been replaced with an English style of "t" in the last decades too. I wonder if that makes my handwriting harder to read for anyone who isn't Dutch and over 40 years old. Anyway, just bringin…

Also the x thing is common knowledge in India, and maybe most countries with Independence days. I switched to backtrack though.

Re: Backtrack-Free Cursive

#36

Post by zczc »

chrisjj wrote: post #22

> ... in Russian. Only й (short i) and э (pronounced like e in end) require two strokes. Plus some uppercase e.g. A, B, H, right?

In school-taught cursive, the uppercase A is written with a single stroke, but the upper element in Б, Г, Т and others need a separate stroke. The full alphabet sheet: https://upload-995750d0fd20690d889c7a976af524b6.hb.bizmrg.co...

Re: Backtrack-Free Cursive

#37

Post by brainwad »

shakow wrote: post #28
theresistor wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't that what everyone is doing, or are we Frenchmen the exception? > For reference if the author reads this, we write the latin x exactly like the cyrillic х, i.e. reverse c, bottom-left to top-right diagonal, normal c. I was taught script in the US and Italy as a child, and never learned it like this.

How do you write it; two separate diagonal bars like described in the article? In this case, how do you “flow” it within a word?

I write it with a descending curve, then go back and cross it with an ascending diagonal line when crossing t's / dotting i's/j's. Like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cel3GtSOzow. I think that's pretty standard in English cursives.

Re: Backtrack-Free Cursive

#38

Post by Cockbrand »

hk__2 wrote: post #14
voidUpdate wrote: post #3

You only need 1 backtrack if you do the dots and crosses after you've written the word

That’s addresses in the blog post: > One way to remove backtracking is to lift the pen immediately instead of waiting until the end of the word, as if doing italic calligraphy. Pen lifts alleviate the mental queue problem and give a chance to readjust the palm, but they break the writing flow.

This is how I learned cursive in school, and it never occurred to me that this may interrupt my writing flow. I agree that doing the backtracks after writing the entire word would add to my mental load, but that's probably because I'm not used to that.

So generally, I'd say that the mental load is basically a matter of how one learned cursive in the first place. Though I agree that the mostly backtrack-free Cyrillic cursive looks more elegant.

Would be interesting to learn about the perspective of people who learned Chinese or Japanese as their first script.

Re: Backtrack-Free Cursive

#39

Post by brainwad »

asimovDev wrote: post #13

I have had similar thoughts recently when attending language courses where I write a lot of notes by hand. This problem is exacerbated by umlauts. If the language doesn't have letters like ō (are there any? i only see this letter to represent a sound, never in a word), then the two dots can be replaced with a line and so, I guess, the lowercase T technique from the blog post could be adapted to it. I think I know wha…

There are such: Macrons are required in the Māori language, and probably other Polynesian languages written with Latin script.
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