Localized handwriting

[frodebo]

In handwriting, there are certain language-specific ways of writing accented letters/special letters.

• In Norway and Denmark, the ‘ø’ is often written with a short slash on top of the letters (similar to ‘ó’) or – arguably more relevant in lettering contexts than in handwriting – with the slash only crossing the top of the letter. Norwegians and Danes also have a particular way of writing ‘æ’.

• German handwriting (and, by extension, Norwegian and Danish too) often marks the u with a gesture above, spanning everything from acute-like shapes to lightning-bolt zigzags . This is likely a remainder of Kurrentschrift, where the ‘u’ and ‘n’ look very similar. A dieresis is often times rendered more similar to the hungarumlaut. The uppercase letters with dieresis sometimes tuck the diacritical marks into the letter, and they may even be rendered as a line.

• Polish-writers write the lowercase ‘ł’ with a curl above. A ‘łł’ ligature will have the curl spanning both letters.

• Latvians write the lowercase ‘ģ’ with a tilde instead of the reversed comma.

• The Dutch accented ‘IJ’ and ‘ij’ ligatures sometimes omit one of the acutes.

• Both ogoneks and cedillas I’ve seen reduced to a short stroke below the letters, sometimes also crossing over the lower part of the letter.

 

Are there other examples of this kind of language-specific handwriting?

[Riccardo Sartori]

I’m fairly certain that there are local idiosyncrasies in writing |˜| (tilde) too.

[Ralf Herrmann]

May I ask, why you ask? Out of historic interest or maybe because you want to put something like that in a font? The answers may vary.  

@Florian H. has studied school handwriting across many countries – where many of those local variations come from. He can probably extend the list easily. Of course it’s not just accented letters – there are many variations in the basic Latin letters as well – and figures! Don’t forget the figures, which can cause a lot of confusion, because of local differences. 

[frodebo]

46 minutes ago, Ralf Herrmann said:

May I ask, why you ask? Out of historic interest or maybe because you want to put something like that in a font? The answers may vary.

@Florian H. has studied school handwriting across many countries – where many of those local variations come from. He can probably extend the list easily. Of course it’s not just accented letters – there are many variations in the basic Latin letters as well – and figures! Don’t forget the figures, which can cause a lot of confusion, because of local differences. 

I’m a little puzzled by your answer. You seem to make assumptions about my conclusions. Is it not good enough to just be curious? In any case, the decision whether or not to put something like this in a font depends on a lot of factors (such as the style, the intended use, the language support, the technical limitations, &c &c), but you will never find yourself in the position to make that decision if you don’t know how people write in the first place. The answers does not vary. The condescension, however, certainly does.

Naturally, I have already talked to Florian.

 

[Ralf Herrmann]

3 minutes ago, frodebo said:

I’m a little puzzled by your answer. You seem to make assumptions about my conclusions.

Not at all. Understanding the goals and the background of questions will usually just help to give better answers — that’s all.