Sadly, many American schools trapped little kids with the Palmer method - a loopy style that boys hate. I prefer an Italic style - similar to Spencerian. As a teacher I was appalled not by how few kids could or would use cursive but how many students couldn't read anything except block letters. There's enough psychology showing that writing notes is a far better memory device than typing notes. It should be encouraged.
Oddly enough the palmer method was developed as a more "masculine" hand suitable for an "industrial age", as the loops were meant to be more imposing compared to the thin delicate strokes of Spencerian. I guess nowadays straight lines are viewed as more traditionally "masculine" than are curly loops, it's quite interesting how these things change over time.
@@lapatatadelplato6520 I wish I had my father’s handwriting. It is sharp and jagged but neat and purposeful. It’s a mix of cursive and printed. He had architectural drawing and drafting classes when he was young so it is incredibly orderly. Mine is a mess. I must be crazy. I don’t want anyone to see it actually. Male (54)
How interesting about the psychology! I googled it and it seems it's totally true. I personally feel that my memory is clearer of typed notes than handwritten notes, although I'm only 20 and mostly took notes by typing throughout my life. It'd be interesting to know if these studies were conducted on people mostly raised in a handwritten environment and if this would bias the results
Here in Venezuela we have something called "Método Palmer" (Palmer's Method). A very common series of small books at different levels where you just write a given sentence multiple times as close a posible to the reference using some lines as guides. Is there something similar in Brazil?
@@sebastiangudino9377 In my time there was, but was not used that much as far as I remember because everybody would pick it up easily, there was also training notebooks that were based on you copying the professor's style. If you took long to learn to write cursive, they would recommend to you to practice in your spare time using this Palmer Method, but I scarcely remember this.
The French education system has maintained a strong tradition of teaching cursive handwriting. All French people write the same way, but it is absolutely beautiful! You may have seen it on a chalkboard outside your local cafe describing le menu du jour :)
I’ve known quite a few French people, and many (but not all of them) do succeed in master the method described. However, in the hands of many other French people, that same method (taught the same way) has degraded until it is frankly illegible even to the writer.
Here in Slovakia, kids in elementary school are still taught this exact type of handwriting when they are first learning to write. "Cursive" is known in Slovak as "písané písmo", which literally means "handwritten script" - suggesting it has been the preferred way of handwriting for many years here. This video was nostalgic for me, it reminded me of my first school years, learning cursive :)
It's standard in Montenegro, too (whole ex-Yu region I believe). It's strange to think people wouldn't use cursive when writing with hands. Actually, people who can't write cursive here are considered illiterate... (Not writing this to offense anyone, just sharing experience from another part of the world).
Čau Martin, I could not have said it better, grew up in Slovakia as well. As left handed, the rules for me were different, I was not allowed to use an ink pen in order not to smear ink all over the paper. I had to use what in those days we called a "Chinese pen' (very expensive).
@@moedervanbranko409 Those old-timey ink pens were never very optimised for the fellow left-handed classmates. And everyone, even us right-handed, had their hands always covered with ink splashes, heh
As someone (oldish) who has always written in cursive since I was at school, and who has been loudly lamenting its slow death in recent years, it is refreshing to see someone so young appreciating the intrinsic beauty, as well as recognising the pragmatic advantages, of cursive writing.
Absolutely! A young sixth-grader left a message here, saying he had now taught himself how to write in Spencerian cursive thanks to this video, since his school had not indoctrinated him in that skill. That really made my day! :)
I think the reason Spencerian didn't hit until the 1800s was because of the fountain pen, which made it possible to not have to lift the pen all the time to dip it in more ink. Which would explain why cursive handwriting started to taper off here in the US after the sixties when we invented the ballpoint pen, for which lifting one's hand is a respite from the heavy pressure required to make the pen actually write.
@@polyMATHY_Luke Worse than that, many schools, especially at the elementary level, do not teach you to write with a pen at all but force you to *always* use an HB pencil, and the pencils parents buy for young kids are usually especially cheap and hateful examples of the HB pencil. So if you are practically gouging your letters into the paper using a wooden stylus tipped with "graphite" that crumbles as you write, how are you going to make decent cursive letterforms?
Well done on making the study of Spencerian your goal! My story is similar in that I went through school and university with terrible, terrible handwriting, finally graduating and working as an accountant. One of the directors - a 62 year old man - tried to read my handwritten note about a client and brought it back to me saying that my writing was completely illegible and actually embarrassing. From that point I went on a search for handwriting that was legible and fast. Eventually I stumbled upon Spencerian, which has the added bonus of being utterly beautiful, as you mentioned. It's taken a lot of practice, but I know have the best handwriting of anyone I know, and it's something I can be really proud of. Highly recommend learning Spencerian to everyone; our world would be a more beautiful place if this writing saw a true revival.
I don't find it any more legible, but it's WAY quicker to write with. I use joined up handwriting for my own personal notes, which -I- can at least decipher, and type up anything I'm giving another person to read.
@@AllWordsAreDust Research actually shows that the fastest and most legible handwriting don’t join all the letters (making just the easiest and least accident-prone joins, while skipping the rest), and use printed rather than cursive versions of those letters that strongly “disagree” between printing and cursive. Maybe you might give those strategies a whirl.
I write by hand a ton every day. It helps me to organize my thoughts. Relying on typing into your phone means you'll always be distracted and everything will come out in tiny chunks.
I'm 24 now, I remember when I was at the end of grade 3 the next years teacher said we will be expected to write everything in cursive. Over the summer break the school bough laptops for every class and we ended up never writing in cursive as everything was then expected to be typed. So essentially my handwriting never evolved past late grade 3. Here I am now trying to properly learn (as I hate staring at screens).
It’s disappointing how many people ditch cursive because it’s “unnecessary “ or “useless” . Since I was a kid I was obsessed in a certain way to make my handwriting unique or stand out from my classmates haha . And yes , it did help me to my signature.
I remember when I was in college, there was this one lecturer who wrote a whole essay on the whiteboard in Copperplate beautifully. Since then, I was immediately inspired to work on my handwriting properly with discipline that governs each script I've came across and learn with the utmost attention to learn its structure and history in the context of function and in arts as well.
Knowing cursive can also have weird other uses too I'm a cake decorator and knowing cursive makes cake writing worlds easier And I've found that many english cursive letters are inspired by the way the letter is written in greek, and so practicing cursive made learning handwriting in greek become much more natural to me
Are similarities between English cursive, and Greek cursive is the result of borrowing from Greek into English, or perhaps the result of borrowing from English into contemporary Greek? I would value any documentable facts on the matter.
The decision to eliminate cursive from grade school curricula is misguided. True, handwriting is not as prevalent but what it does do is develop small motor skills in the developing brain, and ability to visually plan out a line of text evenly and a sense of esthetics. Look past the raw skill and see the broader application of the skill.
@@Matthew-cw3gn When all the car-seat minecraft players grow up, we'll have a more definite answer. I have a feeling that their logic and spatial awareness abilities will be higher, but their social skills will be lower.
Why was is eliminated in the first place? I first went to a modern city school (Melbourne, Australia) and leaned a more modern hand writing that was sort of cursive but not quite. Then moved to a regional area in North Queensland where everything taught was old school. There I learned cursive handwriting, the old fashioned type. I still write that way and it suits me fine because I’m an artist. It looks beautiful. I think you’re right though, it does help with fine mother skills.
I was born in 1995 and made elementary school at Cuba. Writing in cursive is my default hand writing style from the beginning. The first time I learned that in other places there are some people that don't know how to write (and some times also read) cursive letters I was shocked.
It is great to see someone taking the time to promote something good for others without taking any advantage. Thank you! BTW, we do teach cursive at our school starting at Kindergarten :)
I notice that my niece, at 5, is being taught funny serifs (if that's the term) on her block lowercase. I mentioned it to her grandmother, who's certainly served her time as a Primary School teacher, and she said that it's because it makes the transition to cursive easier. So, it's back in favour*, then [* - in England]. Beginning at about that age I had a music teacher who would write what was termed 'copperplate' in my record book. It looked really distinctive (and attractive, in its way) but it wasn't exactly easy for a beginning reader.
I'm actually in my junior year of high school right now, and I've recently taken a liking to your highly informative and interesting content. My handwriting is also very very bad, so I hope I can pick up on the Spencerian script! my self-esteem levels will skyrocket if I do!
It's nice to hear you mention the beauty of Russian handwriting. It was one of the positive side effects of studying Russian. And I ended up buying fountain pens. The pens encouraged me big time to continue writing = learing the Russian language. I might restart, now that I miss handwriting. :-)
I'm a lefthander who despises cursive as an instrument of oppressive right-hander supremacism. I was so happy to be free from cursive when I started high school. Then when I started learning Russian the professor made us use cursive, so I gave it a try, but only took Russian for one year. Long after that, I started writing something in English in cursive and unconsciously *switched to the Cyrillic alphabet even though I was writing English* until I got to a sound that the Cyrillic alphabet doesn't have (English "th"). I think my brain exploded or something.
there's the letter Ѳ, ѳ (thita/fita) which used to mean the th sound, but it merged with Ф, ф in standart russian. (that's why the russians say Foma for Thomas, Fiodor for Theodore, Orfografia for orthography...). In cursive you start it like an O, then finish in a squiggle in the middle. That letter was used until the russian revolution
I'm binge watching your videos and stumbled upon this video. I homeschool my kids, Spencerian is what I am teaching my kids. To brush up on my cursive I am also re learning Spencerian. The copy books and the theory books are still available. They are well worth the cost which is not as expensive as one would think. My husband returned to college to pursue a degree in infosec. He would take notes in cursive and all of the young students were amazed by how beautiful it looked only they could not read it or write it. So sad. Love your work.
I was taught cursive at school and only when I switched to block letters in high school, my handwriting became legible. It is almost as fast as cursive and, most importantly, it looks nice.
In India, especially in the English medium schools, we are taught to write in cursive as early as in grade 1-2. So, basically, we practice three different language scripts: English (cursive), native language (Hindi/Odia/Bengali etc.), and national language (Hindi). Every province follows a three-language policy. The native and national language provides the foundation for curves.
I am eighteen years old and was lucky enough to learn cursive handwriting at school. I have used it all the time since I was twelve years old and nearly only write by hand - recently I handed in my examination essay for Spanish, completely written in cursive. The teacher was touched and said there was no way I would ever get it back, she wanted to keep it as a memory! I do private tution as well and I am currently teaching a twelve-year-old to write in cursive. He is sooo proud to do it and even his younger brother has started copying him!
In nowdays Germany, it's even rare that young people write modern cursive. But I write an old version of cursive, the traditional German one which was introduced by Martin Luther and was used until the 1940s.
Grātiās tibi agō for introducing this elegant way of penmanship to me. Mastering at it has taken three days, and now I can take my Latin notes legibly.
I love the way the Spencerian "r" looks, but when I'm not thinking while writing, I automatically use the German cursive "r" as I was taught as a child, which I find much faster to write. I've recently developed my own style as I had to practice a lot to get back into it after years of not using it much. It's a nice skill and makes for legible notes, too.
This is the style of cursive I was taught in elementary school in the early 80s. My handwriting today is kind of a hybrid of this cursive and print letters.
I remember how I came to learn Spencerian writing - in the 3rd grade, we would be graded on our handwriting. My teacher gave me an F for penmanship! In my opinion, my handwriting wasn't "that bad"! So, I determined to prove her WRONG. I searched out the best handwriting I could find (old letters from over 100 years ago, and even my sisters' handwriting - which proved to be Spencerian) and I "practiced", copying the letters, both lower & upper-case, until I was satisfied with the end product! Today, I am often complimented on my penmanship. That teacher is long gone, but my handwriting flows on and on into the future! Thanks for this great video, and many others, as well!
I'm from france, so I learnt only the french form of cursive in schools (it's very upright). And because I'm 57% certain I have dysgraphia, I was terrible at handwriting, and some teachers loved to penalize me on it because I was rather good at the rest. When I turned 10, after getting very interested in calligraphy, learning various alphabets (greek, cyrillic, hebrew, proto-sinaitic and phoenician), and abandoning for good ball pens for fineliners, I decided to get much better at handwriting. So I practiced all summer writing exactly like the font "French Script MT", which is not quite the same as the french handwriting (it has easier capitals for ex.), and by september I was really good at it. And then... My teacher told me my handwriting was "too complex" (somehow). So I regressed. No one deserved the effort actually. To this day I still write terribly by default, but I do real FSMT when no one is reading.
Here in Mexico we used to have Palmer script, yet it is now considered as outdated and in schools even this script is not taught as before. Palmer script was compulsory in my primary school, and I did not learn print up until secondary. So I am now biscripty, yet Palmer is for things slightly formal. When I started to learn Russian I had this advantage, so learning Russian cursive was easy. Yet I adapted Palmer to Russian, and it is a mixture
I learned cursive in school in Germany, but stopped using it in my teens. I recently learned how to use German Kurrent and Sütterlin. You should check them out. Both really beautiful writing styles but unfortunately almost illegible for most people today.
I really appreciate the fact that not only are you an accomplished Latinist, you are an aesthete. That is important. We need to keep beauty--and the value of beauty--in front of us. Beauty is rare, and beautiful things, whether fine penmanship or euphonic speech, deserve homage. (By the way, one of the pleasures of watching your videos is listening to your voice!)
Here in Brazil is common to learn how to write in cursive and it's taught during the literacy period when the kids already know the alphabet and are able to build some words. There are different opinions about this but I believe it's taught to speed up the writing process and also to increase child's self esteem.
I learned cursive in first grade, then I transferred to a school that didn't teach it until second. I write my diary in cursive, then transfer it online. I take notes for courses on the internet, and I transfer them into notebooks in the cursive. I still have grade school notebooks, and my handwriting rivals a nun's since seventh grade. I find it easier to learn by cursive writing, so I use it for the lessons on this channel, although there's no cursive for ancient Greek. We depend too much on computers. Calculators came out when I was already at Penn State, and later found coworkers who couldn't add two-digit numbers in their heads. I'm probably the only one who goes shopping and figures the total before I check out.
Always keep a running total in my head. How do you know what the bill is going to be otherwise? My friends do the same. Sometimes we compare how close we were to the actual bill when we walk out. I am surprised by how many of my friends who claim they were not good at math in school do this because they only have so much cash in their wallet. We all write in cursive, but that’s because we are over a certain age.
You’re right about cursive hand writing being more quicker to write and presents beautifully. I first learned hand writing in Melbourne, Australia (in the 80s). It was a type of cursive writing but more modern. Then we moved to a regional area in North Queensland where everything taught and the way it was taught was old school. There I learned the old fashioned cursive handwriting. It suits me well, because I’m an artist. Using a calligraphy pen makes it easier. I found that trying my hand at calligraphy, although not as easy as it looks, lent itself well with being a natural cursive hand writer, for which I am grateful. I’m so glad I was suggested your channel. You seem to have a love of history, culture and understanding linguistic derivation and etymology of language. You have a rather refined way of speaking which is pleasant.
I was taught here in Portugal to write in cursive initially. Unfortunately literally nobody continues to use it sometime after they learn it. I, on the other hand, can't write in any kind of blocky handwriting effectively. I still use the Spencerian style of writing, even if I'm the only one who can understand my own handwriting...
The thing that shocked me the most from my short time in the US is that people didn't know cursive. We learn it here in Brazil and I just thought it would be a universal thing.
I became a subscriber to this channel over a year ago due to the content concerning Latin and Greek, and I find it pretty awesome that now, a considerable time later, when I am trying to improve my penmanship, that you put up this video four years ago! Love your content. Thanks for posting great stuff!
I started researching Spencerian script because of my interest in pen and ink drawings specifically dip pens. I like the flourishes and variation in line weight of Spencerian. I use a Pilot Metropolitan fountain pen for my day to day writing. My handwriting isn't terrible but it isn't as beautiful as I would like it. I feel like practicing Spencerian will help me with my en and ink skills as well as being a relaxing hobby.
1. I worked on a Masters programme for students from all over the world, whose application had to include a handwritten page on the student's aims in applying, and was struck by the neatness, regularity and legibility of the handwriting of Chinese students. I presume that having learned to write characters each with a definite and well-formed shape that this method was applied to the Latin alphabet too. I keenly felt the contrast with the untidy and irregular style of most people in the West. 2. The hold on the pen is very important, and it's almost painful to see people holding a pen in their fist rather than balanced between index-finger and thumb. 3. I was interested by your point about Spencerian being the first handwriting that taught not lifting the pen during the writing of a word. What I have found in a piece is that Italian 'cancellaresca' (our Italic), evolved into a rounder, more flowing and more linked script in the late 16th and 17th century 'bastard Italian' (which evolved in France, the Netherlands and England). In the English roundhand that evolved from this in the late 17th century (and then spread all over Europe)-so I learned, but I could be wrong-the pen was never lifted from the page, a characteristic never seen before in any historical script. Indeed, _words_ were often joined, and interestingly these tend to be combinations that in other languages are expressed in the morphology of single words, e.g. 'I_am'), 'the_end' etc.; and interestingly in a sequence like 'bread and_butter', the 'and' is always linked to the second word as with Laton -que. 4. Typically, several styles of writing, appropriate for different purposes and occasions, were taught in schools (grammar schools and writing schools) up to the early 19th century, and one or more would be used for headings and special documents (like the Declaration of Independence), and there the letters would be 'drawn' not written, as they are done by a calligrapher or a lettering artist today. But I totally agree with you about the pleasure and importance of writing a legible and regular hand - it's no more a constraint than keeping the right rhythm and notes in a song, which you can of course do with great concentration in a concert performance, but which most people can do or can be taught to do without any special effort in an informal or everyday situation.
An L is two lines in a right angle, the horizontal one half as long as the vertical one is tall. Simple and easy to read. Letters should be instantly recognizable.
Enjoyed watching your video. I do have a good handwriting and have started the Spencerian guide books. I am having a hard time with letters. Please make some tutorials with letters.
When I was young, I preferred print writing. By fourth grade, my school imposed cursive on me. I didn't take to it very well, and as a result my handwriting is a muddled mix of the two. However, I have at times dabbled with proper cursive, and perhaps I'll take your advice and truly absorb it.
As a native Russian speaker, I confirm, that, yes, there were paid a lot of attention to teach pupils proper cursive handwriting. It’s really beautiful, although it is not a calligraphy itself (but a first step to it). Unfortunately, not so many of my schoolmates were able to properly estimate the beauty and efficiency of such writing approach. I was among those, who didn’t, for my shame. I have started working on my handwriting style only when I has ended a college. I was 21years old. And at that point I was able to admire beautiful forms of cursive handwriting, created by my hands.
I was quite surprised to see that my handwriting is quite similar to Spencerian script. Also, since I've started studying Latin, I am taking quite a few notes which in turn is improving my handwriting!
Growing up in Venezuela children were taught to learn to write print and then learn cursive as they grow. Adults were expected to at least know how to write cursive. When I got in trouble my dad would punish me by making me do calligraphy. Needless to say I had beautiful handwriting of which I was very proud. When we moved to the USA at age 12 I was shocked when teachers asked me to stop writing in cursive because that was "for little kids". Now I can hardly handwrite at all.
Never knew that cursive is an American invention. Well done, guys! I live in Russia and I learned handwriting at school. And the weirdest thing about English lessons to me was the fact that some of my classmates couldn't write English words in cursive (though they definitely were able to do it in Russian). Now I'm trying to learn calligraphy (which is in fact the skill of writing in proper cursive, no matter which instument you use: a nib, a brushpen or a pencil) and lettering (which is actually drawing letters and making compositions of them - best for postcards). And it's difficult to write in blocks, 'cause I am used to cursive - it's timesaving.
A psychological study (Longcamp et al., 2017) of handwriting and reading/writing skills in children and adults found that "the mastery of handwriting is based on the involvement of a network of brain structures whose involvement and inter-connection are specific to writing alphabet characters" and that "these skills are also the basis for the development of more complex language activities involving orthographic knowledge and composition of texts."
I used to have beautiful penmanship. But I had a stroke a few years ago and it changed my handwriting. I still write a journal, and I use Shavian. It's easy for me to write and, now, I can write the same speed as the normal alphabet.
I once tried to adapt Spencerian cursive to the Polish alphabet for everyday use. Then I realised that by having ą, ć, ę, ł, ń, ó, ś, ź, and ż in surprisingly large amounts defeats the purpose of a non-hand-lifty script lol
I started to write in cursive for petty competitive reasons in 6th grade. 6 years later I’m going into 12th grade now and I find it extremely difficult to write in print anymore. My cursive is somewhat illegible to most anyone else and sometimes even me but it’s efficient and looks kind of nice from a fair distance so I can’t say I mind.
I too am very interested in good handwriting and I learned Spencerian, or a smililar style to it, to upgrade my way of presenting my texts to a reader. I didn’t have poor penmanship before but it was not cursive. I approve of this message and encourage anyone to improve their handwriting.
My parents grew up during the 30's and 40's, a time when good hand writing was a must learn skill and they both have/had beautiful penmanship. Interesting you bring up the Russians because that's where my father was from.
My 6th grade teacher in 2008 forced all her students to write in cursive. I had learned cursive in previous grades but never used it. At the time I hated that we had to write in cursive but I came to appreciate it. I never stopped writing in cursive after that.
This is my daily handwriting. This is exactly what I did since I was in grade 5 elementary school. And I keep it up until today. Now I'm 32 years old. But many of my friends are complaining. They said, my handwriting is hard to read because of so many ornaments. Hahaha.. But yeah, I love cursive handwriting. It's beautiful and somehow relaxing.
I got thought of improving my handwriting in 6th grade as my sir writes in amazing handwriting and I felt of writing the style and they started including in any of school function to make holders I felt really happy and I have learnt from this video how to write in neat and beautiful handwriting so thank u very much ........ sir for this video
now this is not an insult but never in my 33 years would i figure that there would be people who couldn't write in cursive, im thankful for the video and the lesson and another style of cursive that i could explore .. so congrats and thanks
It’s unfortunate that more states than not have stopped teaching cursive. Also interesting that most people who learned (modified) Spencerian cursive eventually ended up with a hybrid script with elements of cursive and printing. It’s not only Russian/Cyrillic that has adopted Spencerian style; Greek and even Armenian have Spencerian cursive scripts as well. My Grandfather, born in the 1898, was Greek, and he had beautiful handwriting. Most modern Greek handwriting is also a simplified, hybrid affair (and so is mine), and that older style is seen as rather flowery and old fashioned, but I kind of regret never really making it my own.
In Italy we still teach cursive handwriting, although in a different fashion called "Corsivo Italiano", and even in higher education the Professors will either chip away some points from your score because of poor penmanship, or grammar, or both. If your paper is utterly unreadable, be prepared to take that exam again. As my Physics professor once told me, in High School: "Writing is an instrument of communication: if your handwriting is jerky or downright awful, you're not communicating anything and might as well not write at all."
Well said! Interestingly, the tradition of cursive in Italy appears to be quite different from that in say Russia and the US, which I believe based on the fact that I can almost never read the handwriting of any Italian friends of mine. 😆Christmas cards are a challenging decipherment on the order of cryptographically analysis 😂
@@polyMATHY_Luke Don't worry, it goes the other way around too: Spencerian is really unusual in the Peninsula and it's almost unreadable for most, mainly because it's really thin and light. Our Corsivo developed from the Unciale script through the Cancelleresca script, which was the main handwritten script during the Renaissance: it's very precise, small, moderately thick and flowing because you really needed to cram a lot of information to justify something as expensive as paper back then. That's why the Monte dei Paschi di Siena's bank accounts from that era are gigantic blocks of small-written text. :)
I was surprised how Cursive is no longer taught but at the same time I don't miss it. You see I was a slow writer as a kid and cursive was a torture to learn. I was pretty good with all kinds of subjects but calligraphy as it was called was the thing I hated the most. And after all that struggle to learn how to write cursive it's ironic that is no longer considered something to teach.
In Poland proper handwriting was taught in primary school when I used to attend one. (I don't know how it looks currently.) Nevertheless, I had pretty bad handwriting until I got interested in typography, historical handwriting and so on and in result I developed my own, and a bit unorthodox, style. Of course it helped that back then people were making notes in their notebooks. When I hear schools in States don't teach proper handwriting anymore I'm horrified. Going back to block letters is like erasing at least a thousand years of development of the culture of writing.
For all the good that IAMPETH and similar sites offer, it annoys me unreasonably that they're pushing inks and fancy ink pens from the start. Buy a B4 pencil, get a lined notepad, learn basic strokes and applying pressure before going to lettering. At worst, you'll burn out before dropping money on holders, nibs, inks, roller-ruller (I have no idea how it's called in English), and god knows what else. At best, you'll get the basics down without simultaneously learning (near-certainly) a completely new toolkit. My notes improved enough for everyone to compliment me on them after spending ~15 minutes a day to do up/down strokes, U and inverted-U, Os, and loops for a month and consciously slowing down my writing speed a tiny bit.
Finally I know the name of my writing ! They teach me that one m Chile , where I’m from , then university obligated me to write imprint? .... now I bought I fountain pen , and start writing back to cursive , but I didn’t know the style , now I have to get better , I think just writing and writing ✍️❤️🙏🏼
I nearned cursive in 2nd grade. End of third grade I was one of best best in my grade. Something happened over the summer. At the beginning of 4th grade I had the worst in my class. Fast forward to 9th grade. I took Russian and they never print anything. I only learned Russian cursive well enough for my teacher to stop complaining. I was 14 and I didn't care. Decades later Russians tell me my handwriting is beautiful and are amazed when I tell them I learned it here in the US.
Those logos you mentioned that use "Spencerian" script....it's actually closer to Engrosser's script, which is often mistaken for copperplate script. Spencerian script has very little shading to keep it gentle on the eyes and quick to write, whereas Engrosser's and Copperplate scripts are written with shades on every downstroke and hairlines on every upstroke.
When you talked about the proportion between the upper and the lowercase i got why my mom says my writing is too small My lowercase is around 1/4 the size of my uppercase
I hardly write anything in my "daily" life, it's all typing, including this comment. I found myself with a fountain pen last month, and the obsession with writing was reborn in me. Spencerian is absolutely beautiful, it's akin to speaking with a clear and intelligent vernacular. It's also, somehow, therapeutic.
Spencerian is lovely, but personally I prefer the cleaner Palmer Business Handwriting, possibly because I was taught a version of that in 1957. Beautiful, legible, and simple.
The fastest english writing style is shorthand but the problem with it is that only the one who wrote it can read it because there is no true standardization in shorthand.
Still taught in Québec, Canada even today. We learn to write lowercase in cursive in the spencerian style but capital letters usually are in the block style. There's a huge emphasis on the practicality of cursive because its fast, fluid and legible. Good for notetaking
Years ago, I became obsessed with ww2, the german side. I wanted to be able to read first hand accounts, so I learnt german. Then I realised that most contemporary handwritten letters were in this old german script, Sütterlin (or Kurrent, if the subject in question was an old officer) so I learnt that too. I fell in love with the beauty and stark character of the font, so I made it my default font. It looks beautiful, clear, if you know how to read, and has the added advantage, that I must be literally the only in my country who can read it:)
oh, excellent. I never learned the excellence of Spencerian... I learned in the 1950s - I remember those green placards that every Roman Catholic parochial classroom, had. I suggest buying even an inexpensive fountain pen, too! It brings back the passion of writing cursive.
Ever since we were forced to learn to write in cursive, I've always written in cursive. Because with cursive, I write a lot faster and the flow is smooth. I'm even surprised that so many people on the internet never bothered to learn cursive and don't even recommend it!
“Do people accuse you of being a doctor even though you’ve never been to medical school?”
Lol
:D
I've said that while some people may not yet be doctors, they're definitely pre-med.
People have said that to me...several times
Instant sub on that joke!!
@@polyMATHY_Luke Is WAM your favourite composer?
Sadly, many American schools trapped little kids with the Palmer method - a loopy style that boys hate. I prefer an Italic style - similar to Spencerian. As a teacher I was appalled not by how few kids could or would use cursive but how many students couldn't read anything except block letters. There's enough psychology showing that writing notes is a far better memory device than typing notes. It should be encouraged.
Oh my God! That first sentence nails it! Thank you!!!
Oddly enough the palmer method was developed as a more "masculine" hand suitable for an "industrial age", as the loops were meant to be more imposing compared to the thin delicate strokes of Spencerian. I guess nowadays straight lines are viewed as more traditionally "masculine" than are curly loops, it's quite interesting how these things change over time.
@@lapatatadelplato6520 I wish I had my father’s handwriting. It is sharp and jagged but neat and purposeful. It’s a mix of cursive and printed. He had architectural drawing and drafting classes when he was young so it is incredibly orderly. Mine is a mess. I must be crazy. I don’t want anyone to see it actually. Male (54)
This is the best argument against computerized classrooms.
How interesting about the psychology! I googled it and it seems it's totally true. I personally feel that my memory is clearer of typed notes than handwritten notes, although I'm only 20 and mostly took notes by typing throughout my life. It'd be interesting to know if these studies were conducted on people mostly raised in a handwritten environment and if this would bias the results
Still taught here in Brazil and pretty strong, we even have specialized notebooks to teach proper cursive.
Wonderful!
Here in Venezuela we have something called "Método Palmer" (Palmer's Method). A very common series of small books at different levels where you just write a given sentence multiple times as close a posible to the reference using some lines as guides. Is there something similar in Brazil?
@@sebastiangudino9377 In my time there was, but was not used that much as far as I remember because everybody would pick it up easily, there was also training notebooks that were based on you copying the professor's style. If you took long to learn to write cursive, they would recommend to you to practice in your spare time using this Palmer Method, but I scarcely remember this.
In Russia and East Europe too
I never taught we would be ahead of the American Empire on education...
The French education system has maintained a strong tradition of teaching cursive handwriting. All French people write the same way, but it is absolutely beautiful! You may have seen it on a chalkboard outside your local cafe describing le menu du jour :)
I’ve known quite a few French people, and many (but not all of them) do succeed in master the method described. However, in the hands of many other French people, that same method (taught the same way) has degraded until it is frankly illegible even to the writer.
Here in Slovakia, kids in elementary school are still taught this exact type of handwriting when they are first learning to write.
"Cursive" is known in Slovak as "písané písmo", which literally means "handwritten script" - suggesting it has been the preferred way of handwriting for many years here. This video was nostalgic for me, it reminded me of my first school years, learning cursive :)
Martin Jakubec oh that’s wonderful! I love the Slovak language and people so it’s great to know this tradition is alive there still.
It's standard in Montenegro, too (whole ex-Yu region I believe). It's strange to think people wouldn't use cursive when writing with hands. Actually, people who can't write cursive here are considered illiterate... (Not writing this to offense anyone, just sharing experience from another part of the world).
Čau Martin, I could not have said it better, grew up in Slovakia as well. As left handed, the rules for me were different, I was not allowed to use an ink pen in order not to smear ink all over the paper. I had to use what in those days we called a "Chinese pen' (very expensive).
@@moedervanbranko409 Those old-timey ink pens were never very optimised for the fellow left-handed classmates. And everyone, even us right-handed, had their hands always covered with ink splashes, heh
It's exactly the same in Poland :)
Luke: Russians love their cursive.
Russians: шиншилла! лишили лилии!
😂 that is very true! Luckily those kinds of words aren't used too often!
Пишишь? шить?
@@ak5659 "Пишить" - это чо такое?
As someone (oldish) who has always written in cursive since I was at school, and who has been loudly lamenting its slow death in recent years, it is refreshing to see someone so young appreciating the intrinsic beauty, as well as recognising the pragmatic advantages, of cursive writing.
Absolutely! A young sixth-grader left a message here, saying he had now taught himself how to write in Spencerian cursive thanks to this video, since his school had not indoctrinated him in that skill. That really made my day! :)
I think the reason Spencerian didn't hit until the 1800s was because of the fountain pen, which made it possible to not have to lift the pen all the time to dip it in more ink.
Which would explain why cursive handwriting started to taper off here in the US after the sixties when we invented the ballpoint pen, for which lifting one's hand is a respite from the heavy pressure required to make the pen actually write.
The technological interpretation adds clarity, I like it.
@@polyMATHY_Luke Worse than that, many schools, especially at the elementary level, do not teach you to write with a pen at all but force you to *always* use an HB pencil, and the pencils parents buy for young kids are usually especially cheap and hateful examples of the HB pencil. So if you are practically gouging your letters into the paper using a wooden stylus tipped with "graphite" that crumbles as you write, how are you going to make decent cursive letterforms?
I write Tengwar (Elvish) almost daily and I enjoyed your momentary discussion on Tolkien’s maps. Linguam Latinam quoque nunc disco. Gratias Luke!
Well done on making the study of Spencerian your goal! My story is similar in that I went through school and university with terrible, terrible handwriting, finally graduating and working as an accountant. One of the directors - a 62 year old man - tried to read my handwritten note about a client and brought it back to me saying that my writing was completely illegible and actually embarrassing. From that point I went on a search for handwriting that was legible and fast. Eventually I stumbled upon Spencerian, which has the added bonus of being utterly beautiful, as you mentioned. It's taken a lot of practice, but I know have the best handwriting of anyone I know, and it's something I can be really proud of. Highly recommend learning Spencerian to everyone; our world would be a more beautiful place if this writing saw a true revival.
That was very similar to my story! Good for you. I think the advantages are immediately evident! Thanks for your comment.
Could I see what your handwriting looks like?
Your voice and talking style is really really smooth
Thanks so much! :)
Yes. He needs to be a voice for audiobooks. Some of the vocalists have very difficult voices for listening.
Aurora Dear thanks! I sell some audiobooks at luke-ranieri.shopify.com but if you know of an audiobook agency that would hire me, let me know!
I mean, I use cursive and still manage to make it unreadable
I don't find it any more legible, but it's WAY quicker to write with.
I use joined up handwriting for my own personal notes, which -I- can at least decipher, and type up anything I'm giving another person to read.
Cursive gives me headaches or migraine I’m not lying looking at cursive literally gives me a headache
@@AllWordsAreDust Research actually shows that the fastest and most legible handwriting don’t join all the letters (making just the easiest and least accident-prone joins, while skipping the rest), and use printed rather than cursive versions of those letters that strongly “disagree” between printing and cursive. Maybe you might give those strategies a whirl.
That's an amazing bald head. Reminds me of Lex Luthor. Great handwriting too.
Thanks! :D
cruel
Caput Intellectae
Haha
@@bruno-bnvm its an absolute compliment! 😍😁
I write by hand a ton every day. It helps me to organize my thoughts. Relying on typing into your phone means you'll always be distracted and everything will come out in tiny chunks.
I'm 24 now, I remember when I was at the end of grade 3 the next years teacher said we will be expected to write everything in cursive. Over the summer break the school bough laptops for every class and we ended up never writing in cursive as everything was then expected to be typed. So essentially my handwriting never evolved past late grade 3. Here I am now trying to properly learn (as I hate staring at screens).
Yup, same happened to me
It’s disappointing how many people ditch cursive because it’s “unnecessary “ or “useless” . Since I was a kid I was obsessed in a certain way to make my handwriting unique or stand out from my classmates haha . And yes , it did help me to my signature.
I remember when I was in college, there was this one lecturer who wrote a whole essay on the whiteboard in Copperplate beautifully. Since then, I was immediately inspired to work on my handwriting properly with discipline that governs each script I've came across and learn with the utmost attention to learn its structure and history in the context of function and in arts as well.
Wonderful!
Khairul Haikal
?
Polymathy .
Did you ask the lecturer about it?
Knowing cursive can also have weird other uses too
I'm a cake decorator and knowing cursive makes cake writing worlds easier
And I've found that many english cursive letters are inspired by the way the letter is written in greek, and so practicing cursive made learning handwriting in greek become much more natural to me
Are similarities between English cursive, and Greek cursive is the result of borrowing from Greek into English, or perhaps the result of borrowing from English into contemporary Greek? I would value any documentable facts on the matter.
@@KateGladstone borrowing inspiration from greek lettering, at least in the common English cursive script.
The decision to eliminate cursive from grade school curricula is misguided. True, handwriting is not as prevalent but what it does do is develop small motor skills in the developing brain, and ability to visually plan out a line of text evenly and a sense of esthetics. Look past the raw skill and see the broader application of the skill.
This is the exact same argument people use to say that video games are actually good for you.
@@Matthew-cw3gn [citation needed]
@@lohphat [cope] your pretentiousness is embarrassing
@@Matthew-cw3gn When all the car-seat minecraft players grow up, we'll have a more definite answer. I have a feeling that their logic and spatial awareness abilities will be higher, but their social skills will be lower.
Why was is eliminated in the first place? I first went to a modern city school (Melbourne, Australia) and leaned a more modern hand writing that was sort of cursive but not quite. Then moved to a regional area in North Queensland where everything taught was old school. There I learned cursive handwriting, the old fashioned type. I still write that way and it suits me fine because I’m an artist. It looks beautiful.
I think you’re right though, it does help with fine mother skills.
Now I am gratefull for cursive writting being compulsory in brazilian education. Never would I think of it.
I was born in 1995 and made elementary school at Cuba.
Writing in cursive is my default hand writing style from the beginning.
The first time I learned that in other places there are some people that don't know how to write (and some times also read) cursive letters I was shocked.
"do people accuse you of being a doctor?"
lmaoooo I'm dead
Here in Argentina it's very common and mandatory to learn cursive writing at primary school
at 7 grade i find out that i wasnt obliged to write in cursive, i was so amazed in awe of that decovery, i lived i happy life since.
I'm in college, and I love writing in cursive with my Lamy 2000 for my classes.
Wonderful!
Are you German? I am brazilian and I am writing with my lamy safari right now. I hope you finished college and that you are doing well.
When I was studying Russian in college, I noticed right away how much nicer my handwriting was in Cyrillic. Now I know why.
It is great to see someone taking the time to promote something good for others without taking any advantage. Thank you! BTW, we do teach cursive at our school starting at Kindergarten :)
Wow that's great! 😃 I say hi to all your students and congratulate them on their hard work. 👍
I notice that my niece, at 5, is being taught funny serifs (if that's the term) on her block lowercase. I mentioned it to her grandmother, who's certainly served her time as a Primary School teacher, and she said that it's because it makes the transition to cursive easier. So, it's back in favour*, then [* - in England].
Beginning at about that age I had a music teacher who would write what was termed 'copperplate' in my record book. It looked really distinctive (and attractive, in its way) but it wasn't exactly easy for a beginning reader.
I'm actually in my junior year of high school right now, and I've recently taken a liking to your highly informative and interesting content. My handwriting is also very very bad, so I hope I can pick up on the Spencerian script! my self-esteem levels will skyrocket if I do!
Many thanks! I appreciate the comment on this old video
It's nice to hear you mention the beauty of Russian handwriting. It was one of the positive side effects of studying Russian. And I ended up buying fountain pens. The pens encouraged me big time to continue writing = learing the Russian language. I might restart, now that I miss handwriting. :-)
I'm a lefthander who despises cursive as an instrument of oppressive right-hander supremacism. I was so happy to be free from cursive when I started high school. Then when I started learning Russian the professor made us use cursive, so I gave it a try, but only took Russian for one year. Long after that, I started writing something in English in cursive and unconsciously *switched to the Cyrillic alphabet even though I was writing English* until I got to a sound that the Cyrillic alphabet doesn't have (English "th"). I think my brain exploded or something.
there's the letter Ѳ, ѳ (thita/fita) which used to mean the th sound, but it merged with Ф, ф in standart russian. (that's why the russians say Foma for Thomas, Fiodor for Theodore, Orfografia for orthography...). In cursive you start it like an O, then finish in a squiggle in the middle.
That letter was used until the russian revolution
I'm binge watching your videos and stumbled upon this video. I homeschool my kids, Spencerian is what I am teaching my kids. To brush up on my cursive I am also re learning Spencerian. The copy books and the theory books are still available. They are well worth the cost which is not as expensive as one would think. My husband returned to college to pursue a degree in infosec. He would take notes in cursive and all of the young students were amazed by how beautiful it looked only they could not read it or write it. So sad. Love your work.
I was taught cursive at school and only when I switched to block letters in high school, my handwriting became legible. It is almost as fast as cursive and, most importantly, it looks nice.
The problem was the instruction on cursive. It’s never too late.
In India, especially in the English medium schools, we are taught to write in cursive as early as in grade 1-2. So, basically, we practice three different language scripts: English (cursive), native language (Hindi/Odia/Bengali etc.), and national language (Hindi). Every province follows a three-language policy. The native and national language provides the foundation for curves.
I am eighteen years old and was lucky enough to learn cursive handwriting at school. I have used it all the time since I was twelve years old and nearly only write by hand - recently I handed in my examination essay for Spanish, completely written in cursive. The teacher was touched and said there was no way I would ever get it back, she wanted to keep it as a memory! I do private tution as well and I am currently teaching a twelve-year-old to write in cursive. He is sooo proud to do it and even his younger brother has started copying him!
In nowdays Germany, it's even rare that young people write modern cursive. But I write an old version of cursive, the traditional German one which was introduced by Martin Luther and was used until the 1940s.
Grātiās tibi agō for introducing this elegant way of penmanship to me. Mastering at it has taken three days, and now I can take my Latin notes legibly.
What? Three days?
I love the way the Spencerian "r" looks, but when I'm not thinking while writing, I automatically use the German cursive "r" as I was taught as a child, which I find much faster to write. I've recently developed my own style as I had to practice a lot to get back into it after years of not using it much. It's a nice skill and makes for legible notes, too.
This is the style of cursive I was taught in elementary school in the early 80s. My handwriting today is kind of a hybrid of this cursive and print letters.
I remember how I came to learn Spencerian writing - in the 3rd grade, we would be graded on our handwriting. My teacher gave me an F for penmanship! In my opinion, my handwriting wasn't "that bad"! So, I determined to prove her WRONG. I searched out the best handwriting I could find (old letters from over 100 years ago, and even my sisters' handwriting - which proved to be Spencerian) and I "practiced", copying the letters, both lower & upper-case, until I was satisfied with the end product! Today, I am often complimented on my penmanship. That teacher is long gone, but my handwriting flows on and on into the future! Thanks for this great video, and many others, as well!
I'm from france, so I learnt only the french form of cursive in schools (it's very upright). And because I'm 57% certain I have dysgraphia, I was terrible at handwriting, and some teachers loved to penalize me on it because I was rather good at the rest. When I turned 10, after getting very interested in calligraphy, learning various alphabets (greek, cyrillic, hebrew, proto-sinaitic and phoenician), and abandoning for good ball pens for fineliners, I decided to get much better at handwriting. So I practiced all summer writing exactly like the font "French Script MT", which is not quite the same as the french handwriting (it has easier capitals for ex.), and by september I was really good at it.
And then... My teacher told me my handwriting was "too complex" (somehow).
So I regressed. No one deserved the effort actually. To this day I still write terribly by default, but I do real FSMT when no one is reading.
Here in Mexico we used to have Palmer script, yet it is now considered as outdated and in schools even this script is not taught as before. Palmer script was compulsory in my primary school, and I did not learn print up until secondary. So I am now biscripty, yet Palmer is for things slightly formal.
When I started to learn Russian I had this advantage, so learning Russian cursive was easy. Yet I adapted Palmer to Russian, and it is a mixture
I learned cursive in school in Germany, but stopped using it in my teens. I recently learned how to use German Kurrent and Sütterlin. You should check them out. Both really beautiful writing styles but unfortunately almost illegible for most people today.
Kann ich nur bestätigen.
I really appreciate the fact that not only are you an accomplished Latinist, you are an aesthete. That is important. We need to keep beauty--and the value of beauty--in front of us. Beauty is rare, and beautiful things, whether fine penmanship or euphonic speech, deserve homage.
(By the way, one of the pleasures of watching your videos is listening to your voice!)
Here in Brazil is common to learn how to write in cursive and it's taught during the literacy period when the kids already know the alphabet and are able to build some words. There are different opinions about this but I believe it's taught to speed up the writing process and also to increase child's self esteem.
I learned cursive in first grade, then I transferred to a school that didn't teach it until second. I write my diary in cursive, then transfer it online. I take notes for courses on the internet, and I transfer them into notebooks in the cursive. I still have grade school notebooks, and my handwriting rivals a nun's since seventh grade. I find it easier to learn by cursive writing, so I use it for the lessons on this channel, although there's no cursive for ancient Greek. We depend too much on computers. Calculators came out when I was already at Penn State, and later found coworkers who couldn't add two-digit numbers in their heads. I'm probably the only one who goes shopping and figures the total before I check out.
Always keep a running total in my head. How do you know what the bill is going to be otherwise? My friends do the same. Sometimes we compare how close we were to the actual bill when we walk out. I am surprised by how many of my friends who claim they were not good at math in school do this because they only have so much cash in their wallet.
We all write in cursive, but that’s because we are over a certain age.
You’re right about cursive hand writing being more quicker to write and presents beautifully.
I first learned hand writing in Melbourne, Australia (in the 80s). It was a type of cursive writing but more modern. Then we moved to a regional area in North Queensland where everything taught and the way it was taught was old school. There I learned the old fashioned cursive handwriting.
It suits me well, because I’m an artist. Using a calligraphy pen makes it easier. I found that trying my hand at calligraphy, although not as easy as it looks, lent itself well with being a natural cursive hand writer, for which I am grateful.
I’m so glad I was suggested your channel. You seem to have a love of history, culture and understanding linguistic derivation and etymology of language. You have a rather refined way of speaking which is pleasant.
I was taught here in Portugal to write in cursive initially. Unfortunately literally nobody continues to use it sometime after they learn it. I, on the other hand, can't write in any kind of blocky handwriting effectively. I still use the Spencerian style of writing, even if I'm the only one who can understand my own handwriting...
The thing that shocked me the most from my short time in the US is that people didn't know cursive. We learn it here in Brazil and I just thought it would be a universal thing.
I became a subscriber to this channel over a year ago due to the content concerning Latin and Greek, and I find it pretty awesome that now, a considerable time later, when I am trying to improve my penmanship, that you put up this video four years ago!
Love your content. Thanks for posting great stuff!
Thanks for watching it!
The full package - good voice, good music, good content. Thank you!
I've been on that same search and thank you for convincing me that your was the way to go. I am now your student. Thanks a million.
I started researching Spencerian script because of my interest in pen and ink drawings specifically dip pens. I like the flourishes and variation in line weight of Spencerian. I use a Pilot Metropolitan fountain pen for my day to day writing. My handwriting isn't terrible but it isn't as beautiful as I would like it. I feel like practicing Spencerian will help me with my en and ink skills as well as being a relaxing hobby.
1. I worked on a Masters programme for students from all over the world, whose application had to include a handwritten page on the student's aims in applying, and was struck by the neatness, regularity and legibility of the handwriting of Chinese students. I presume that having learned to write characters each with a definite and well-formed shape that this method was applied to the Latin alphabet too. I keenly felt the contrast with the untidy and irregular style of most people in the West.
2. The hold on the pen is very important, and it's almost painful to see people holding a pen in their fist rather than balanced between index-finger and thumb.
3. I was interested by your point about Spencerian being the first handwriting that taught not lifting the pen during the writing of a word. What I have found in a piece is that Italian 'cancellaresca' (our Italic), evolved into a rounder, more flowing and more linked script in the late 16th and 17th century 'bastard Italian' (which evolved in France, the Netherlands and England). In the English roundhand that evolved from this in the late 17th century (and then spread all over Europe)-so I learned, but I could be wrong-the pen was never lifted from the page, a characteristic never seen before in any historical script. Indeed, _words_ were often joined, and interestingly these tend to be combinations that in other languages are expressed in the morphology of single words, e.g. 'I_am'), 'the_end' etc.; and interestingly in a sequence like 'bread and_butter', the 'and' is always linked to the second word as with Laton -que.
4. Typically, several styles of writing, appropriate for different purposes and occasions, were taught in schools (grammar schools and writing schools) up to the early 19th century, and one or more would be used for headings and special documents (like the Declaration of Independence), and there the letters would be 'drawn' not written, as they are done by a calligrapher or a lettering artist today.
But I totally agree with you about the pleasure and importance of writing a legible and regular hand - it's no more a constraint than keeping the right rhythm and notes in a song, which you can of course do with great concentration in a concert performance, but which most people can do or can be taught to do without any special effort in an informal or everyday situation.
An L is two lines in a right angle, the horizontal one half as long as the vertical one is tall. Simple and easy to read. Letters should be instantly recognizable.
Enjoyed watching your video. I do have a good handwriting and have started the Spencerian guide books. I am having a hard time with letters. Please make some tutorials with letters.
Okay! I am planning to make some.
When I was young, I preferred print writing. By fourth grade, my school imposed cursive on me. I didn't take to it very well, and as a result my handwriting is a muddled mix of the two.
However, I have at times dabbled with proper cursive, and perhaps I'll take your advice and truly absorb it.
As a native Russian speaker, I confirm, that, yes, there were paid a lot of attention to teach pupils proper cursive handwriting. It’s really beautiful, although it is not a calligraphy itself (but a first step to it). Unfortunately, not so many of my schoolmates were able to properly estimate the beauty and efficiency of such writing approach. I was among those, who didn’t, for my shame. I have started working on my handwriting style only when I has ended a college. I was 21years old. And at that point I was able to admire beautiful forms of cursive handwriting, created by my hands.
I was quite surprised to see that my handwriting is quite similar to Spencerian script. Also, since I've started studying Latin, I am taking quite a few notes which in turn is improving my handwriting!
In Germany we still learn cursive handwriting in elementary school and it is considered childhish to write standard font in a letter.
Gut
Growing up in Venezuela children were taught to learn to write print and then learn cursive as they grow. Adults were expected to at least know how to write cursive. When I got in trouble my dad would punish me by making me do calligraphy. Needless to say I had beautiful handwriting of which I was very proud.
When we moved to the USA at age 12 I was shocked when teachers asked me to stop writing in cursive because that was "for little kids". Now I can hardly handwrite at all.
Never knew that cursive is an American invention. Well done, guys!
I live in Russia and I learned handwriting at school. And the weirdest thing about English lessons to me was the fact that some of my classmates couldn't write English words in cursive (though they definitely were able to do it in Russian).
Now I'm trying to learn calligraphy (which is in fact the skill of writing in proper cursive, no matter which instument you use: a nib, a brushpen or a pencil) and lettering (which is actually drawing letters and making compositions of them - best for postcards). And it's difficult to write in blocks, 'cause I am used to cursive - it's timesaving.
A psychological study (Longcamp et al., 2017) of handwriting and reading/writing skills in children and adults found that "the mastery of handwriting is based on the involvement of a network of brain structures whose involvement and inter-connection are specific to writing alphabet characters" and that "these skills are also the basis for the development of more complex language activities involving orthographic knowledge and composition of texts."
Very good choice with the 21st Mozart's concerto ! And many thanks for your explainations !
I used to have beautiful penmanship. But I had a stroke a few years ago and it changed my handwriting. I still write a journal, and I use Shavian. It's easy for me to write and, now, I can write the same speed as the normal alphabet.
I once tried to adapt Spencerian cursive to the Polish alphabet for everyday use. Then I realised that by having ą, ć, ę, ł, ń, ó, ś, ź, and ż in surprisingly large amounts defeats the purpose of a non-hand-lifty script lol
_My favourite music in the background_ ♥️
I was gonna make the doctor joke before you even said it 😅😋 thank goodness medical records are electronic now
Haha indeed! 👩⚕️ 👨⚕️
I started to write in cursive for petty competitive reasons in 6th grade. 6 years later I’m going into 12th grade now and I find it extremely difficult to write in print anymore. My cursive is somewhat illegible to most anyone else and sometimes even me but it’s efficient and looks kind of nice from a fair distance so I can’t say I mind.
I too am very interested in good handwriting and I learned Spencerian, or a smililar style to it, to upgrade my way of presenting my texts to a reader. I didn’t have poor penmanship before but it was not cursive. I approve of this message and encourage anyone to improve their handwriting.
My parents grew up during the 30's and 40's, a time when good hand writing was a must learn skill and they both have/had beautiful penmanship. Interesting you bring up the Russians because that's where my father was from.
My 6th grade teacher in 2008 forced all her students to write in cursive. I had learned cursive in previous grades but never used it. At the time I hated that we had to write in cursive but I came to appreciate it. I never stopped writing in cursive after that.
This is my daily handwriting. This is exactly what I did since I was in grade 5 elementary school. And I keep it up until today. Now I'm 32 years old. But many of my friends are complaining. They said, my handwriting is hard to read because of so many ornaments. Hahaha.. But yeah, I love cursive handwriting. It's beautiful and somehow relaxing.
I got thought of improving my handwriting in 6th grade as my sir writes in amazing handwriting and I felt of writing the style and they started including in any of school function to make holders I felt really happy and I have learnt from this video how to write in neat and beautiful handwriting so thank u very much ........ sir for this video
I am so glad to hear that! :) Best of luck to you.
now this is not an insult but never in my 33 years would i figure that there would be people who couldn't write in cursive, im thankful for the video and the lesson and another style of cursive that i could explore .. so congrats and thanks
I write all of my English in Kurrentschrift. When people ask me what language it is, I just smile. :)
It’s unfortunate that more states than not have stopped teaching cursive. Also interesting that most people who learned (modified) Spencerian cursive eventually ended up with a hybrid script with elements of cursive and printing.
It’s not only Russian/Cyrillic that has adopted Spencerian style; Greek and even Armenian have Spencerian cursive scripts as well. My Grandfather, born in the 1898, was Greek, and he had beautiful handwriting. Most modern Greek handwriting is also a simplified, hybrid affair (and so is mine), and that older style is seen as rather flowery and old fashioned, but I kind of regret never really making it my own.
This is the kind of cursive I was taught in Catholic School in the mid 80s.
Same here.
In Italy we still teach cursive handwriting, although in a different fashion called "Corsivo Italiano", and even in higher education the Professors will either chip away some points from your score because of poor penmanship, or grammar, or both. If your paper is utterly unreadable, be prepared to take that exam again.
As my Physics professor once told me, in High School: "Writing is an instrument of communication: if your handwriting is jerky or downright awful, you're not communicating anything and might as well not write at all."
Well said! Interestingly, the tradition of cursive in Italy appears to be quite different from that in say Russia and the US, which I believe based on the fact that I can almost never read the handwriting of any Italian friends of mine. 😆Christmas cards are a challenging decipherment on the order of cryptographically analysis 😂
@@polyMATHY_Luke Don't worry, it goes the other way around too: Spencerian is really unusual in the Peninsula and it's almost unreadable for most, mainly because it's really thin and light. Our Corsivo developed from the Unciale script through the Cancelleresca script, which was the main handwritten script during the Renaissance: it's very precise, small, moderately thick and flowing because you really needed to cram a lot of information to justify something as expensive as paper back then. That's why the Monte dei Paschi di Siena's bank accounts from that era are gigantic blocks of small-written text. :)
I was surprised how Cursive is no longer taught but at the same time I don't miss it. You see I was a slow writer as a kid and cursive was a torture to learn. I was pretty good with all kinds of subjects but calligraphy as it was called was the thing I hated the most. And after all that struggle to learn how to write cursive it's ironic that is no longer considered something to teach.
In Poland proper handwriting was taught in primary school when I used to attend one. (I don't know how it looks currently.) Nevertheless, I had pretty bad handwriting until I got interested in typography, historical handwriting and so on and in result I developed my own, and a bit unorthodox, style. Of course it helped that back then people were making notes in their notebooks. When I hear schools in States don't teach proper handwriting anymore I'm horrified. Going back to block letters is like erasing at least a thousand years of development of the culture of writing.
I really like when a friend or a family member send me a handwritten letter.
For all the good that IAMPETH and similar sites offer, it annoys me unreasonably that they're pushing inks and fancy ink pens from the start. Buy a B4 pencil, get a lined notepad, learn basic strokes and applying pressure before going to lettering. At worst, you'll burn out before dropping money on holders, nibs, inks, roller-ruller (I have no idea how it's called in English), and god knows what else. At best, you'll get the basics down without simultaneously learning (near-certainly) a completely new toolkit. My notes improved enough for everyone to compliment me on them after spending ~15 minutes a day to do up/down strokes, U and inverted-U, Os, and loops for a month and consciously slowing down my writing speed a tiny bit.
Well done!
Finally I know the name of my writing ! They teach me that one m Chile , where I’m from , then university obligated me to write imprint? .... now I bought I fountain pen , and start writing back to cursive , but I didn’t know the style , now I have to get better , I think just writing and writing ✍️❤️🙏🏼
I nearned cursive in 2nd grade. End of third grade I was one of best best in my grade. Something happened over the summer. At the beginning of 4th grade I had the worst in my class.
Fast forward to 9th grade. I took Russian and they never print anything. I only learned Russian cursive well enough for my teacher to stop complaining. I was 14 and I didn't care. Decades later Russians tell me my handwriting is beautiful and are amazed when I tell them I learned it here in the US.
Those logos you mentioned that use "Spencerian" script....it's actually closer to Engrosser's script, which is often mistaken for copperplate script. Spencerian script has very little shading to keep it gentle on the eyes and quick to write, whereas Engrosser's and Copperplate scripts are written with shades on every downstroke and hairlines on every upstroke.
When you talked about the proportion between the upper and the lowercase i got why my mom says my writing is too small
My lowercase is around 1/4 the size of my uppercase
I hardly write anything in my "daily" life, it's all typing, including this comment. I found myself with a fountain pen last month, and the obsession with writing was reborn in me. Spencerian is absolutely beautiful, it's akin to speaking with a clear and intelligent vernacular. It's also, somehow, therapeutic.
Love the script
Spencerian is lovely, but personally I prefer the cleaner Palmer Business Handwriting, possibly because I was taught a version of that in 1957. Beautiful, legible, and simple.
The fastest english writing style is shorthand but the problem with it is that only the one who wrote it can read it because there is no true standardization in shorthand.
Still taught in Québec, Canada even today. We learn to write lowercase in cursive in the spencerian style but capital letters usually are in the block style. There's a huge emphasis on the practicality of cursive because its fast, fluid and legible. Good for notetaking
My school taught spencerian in 3rd grade and required it up until middle school. I still use cursive quite a bit
This guy and this program are sensational! Should be mandatory in our schools.
Years ago, I became obsessed with ww2, the german side. I wanted to be able to read first hand accounts, so I learnt german. Then I realised that most contemporary handwritten letters were in this old german script, Sütterlin (or Kurrent, if the subject in question was an old officer) so I learnt that too. I fell in love with the beauty and stark character of the font, so I made it my default font. It looks beautiful, clear, if you know how to read, and has the added advantage, that I must be literally the only in my country who can read it:)
I had been taught cursive when I was young, but by that time I had mostly forgotten it, and my writing was an atrocious mess.
I think that outside the United States almost every country still writes in cursive, primarily.
oh, excellent. I never learned the excellence of Spencerian... I learned in the 1950s - I remember those green placards that every Roman Catholic parochial classroom, had. I suggest buying even an inexpensive fountain pen, too! It brings back the passion of writing cursive.
i have learned cursive cyrillic in school, and it influenced how i write latin script very much!
Ever since we were forced to learn to write in cursive, I've always written in cursive. Because with cursive, I write a lot faster and the flow is smooth. I'm even surprised that so many people on the internet never bothered to learn cursive and don't even recommend it!
As an Italian I can assure that we always write in cursive
Great presentation and a brief history of the Spencerian Script! keep pressing forward.
Thanks, Robert!