Czech Schools Are Testing A New Style Of Handwriting

[KateGladstone]

Re:

 

Using names of places and nations/groups of people (like religions) does not always warrant words to begin with upper case letters. Rules specifying when to begin a word with an upper case vs. lower case letter (in a group of words that constitute a full name, i.e. including the words "street" or "square") are quite complex and hard to remember and easy to mix up. Yes, these rules are defined in Czech grammar.

 

But why is it in grammar, rather than in orthography, that Czech schoolteachers define these rules?

 

So the very complex rules for capitalization in Czech are somewhat different from the similarly complex rules for capitalization in English. I do not understand, then, what the complexity of the rules has to do with whether they are classified as "grammar rules" (by the Czechs) or as "orthographic rules" (by the speakers of English.

 

In other words, here is what I am still trying to understand:

For what reason are the Czechs classifying these rules (the capitalization rules) as a part of grammar, and not as a part of orthography (which is a very different subject of course)?

 

The logical difficulty, as I see it, is best illustrated by an example:

 

Let us take the first sentence of the Czech national anthem:

"Kde domov můj?" ("Where is my home?")

This simple sentence, I must presume, is grammatically correct Czech,

and if one miswrites it as "kde domov Můj?" it has been made ungrammatical

-- correct, Glaurung? --

 

even though the words are pronounced exactly the same

and they are the same words in the same order with the same inflectional endings,

the sentence is now ungrammatical

-- Glaurung, is this correct?

 

So --

 

suppose I hear someone say (or sing) "Kde domov můj?" and I write it down,

making horrendous errors in capitalization (but making no other errors of writing)

and then I give my miscapitalized "kde domov Můj?" back to Glaurung

and I ask him to stand in a public place in Prague and read aloud what I wrote down ...

 

... and then I ask Glaurung to ask a passer-by, a native speaker of Czech:

"Did you just hear a grammatically correct sentence of our language?"

then the only correct reply must be:

"Yes, that sentence is proper Czech" --

-- correct, Glaurung?

 

In other words --

if we accepted the premise that capitalization belonged to grammar --

this would force us to further accept the incredible premise

that an ungrammatical utterance could be transformed into a grammatical utterance

*simply* *by* *being* *spoken*.

 

Re:

 

I know/knew German and Russian quite well, too. Russian handwriting taught in schools is cursive, is not it? (at least I was taught Azbuka cursive in school years and years ago);-)

 

Most Russian is written in a form of looped cursive: some is not.

A Russian equivalent of Italic cursive has gone in and out of style, in some social circles at least, a couple of times during the last two centuries.

 

For example, this can be seen in Stalin's handwriting

(not that I would ever have wanted Stalin as my handwriting teacher --

for one thing, he had a withered right arm!)

 

and it was very commonly seen in the writing of educated people in and around St. Petersburg from about 1900 to about 1925.

 

Also, when I visited Russia

(much more recently, of course -- July/August 1991 and July/August 1992),

 

I found that maybe 10% - 15% of the young people (under 25-30 years of age)

had unconsciously deviated from the very strictly taught Azbuka cursive (that I also learned in Russian classes, in college) in ways that brought it close to a Russian Italic (much like the Italic typeface used for emphasis in Russian books).

 

I also found that Russian-made calligraphic fountain pens with Italic nibs

(some very good, others very bad)

were available in the stores (if anything was available at all!)

and that these were used by many people, whether scribally rebellious or not.

 

Seeing this, I went ahead and "Italicized" my Russian handwriting, too --

since this was apparently acceptable even though it was not the taught standard.

 

I should say that, when I learned Russian in college, I found the Russian looped cursive style somewhat easier than the looped cursive styles I have seen/suffered with in English:

as a faithful student, of course I did my best to follow the model presented

(until I later learned that it was permissible to deviate at least a bit as described above.)

 

Russians typically say that my Russian handwriting looks very good,

and I hope that this is not entirely politeness to a foreigner --

but I have not written Russian for a few years,

so by now I am likely to be out of practice

and therefore I won't send a sample

unless people really want to see something that may not be as nice as I have

[likely in the name of politeness]

been told.

 

Re:

 

Btw. what I find almost ironic about the name of the new style is that Comenius wrote most of his works in Latin, not Czech.

 

Yes -- the usual practice of educated persons at that time was to write in a language that would be internationally understood, not in a language that only their own countrymen would understand. This does not make him any less a Czech -- just as Isaac Newtom wrote his scientific works in Latin without thereby transforming from an Englishman into an ancient Roman.

 

I attach a scan of the oldest known surviving manuscript by Comenius -- http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oldest_manuscript_of_Comenius.jpg --

He wrote this in 1611, when the Italic cursive style had just begun to make some of the changes that would ultimately alter Italic cursive into the looped cursive style. (You can see that Comenius also wrote in Blackletter sometimes.)

 

Re:

I am morally opposed to being offered something that I cannot choose not to accept (via government as proxy) in the name of greater good, regardless how noble the intentions are.

I did not realize that the designer of Comenius was working for the government.

I share your opposition to a government-imposed handwriting style, and your reasons for opposing government imposition of styles -- but at least the money is going for a good style (in my judgement) instead of a bad one.

 

I would not ask the government of the USA to impose a nationwide handwriting style for schools (not even the Italic style which I love so much),

 

precisely because the money for such imposition would come in part from people who opposed the imposition of that style!

 

However ...

... if the USA government did decide (unjustly, in my opinion) to choose some handwriting style to impose in schools nationwide, I would be the first in line to petition that at least the style imposed should be a good one (Italic rather than -- for example -- HWTears), designed and taught by a good teacher.

 

If I think that most of the arguments supporting the change are bogus, all that is left there for me is the self interest of the seller that I cannot tell to go away.

 

Re:

Your experience simply trumps anything I can say here so I humbly accept that argument.

You have my sincere thanks, Glaurung. I have met too many people who tell me "Whether you are correct or incorrect, I cannot presume to consider -- I must reject your evidence and conclusions because I do not feel that these might be correct." This is one of the things, for instance, that the founder of HWTears said to me, and I have also heard it from other teachers, from school administrators, and sometimes from parents or other members of the public (but I have never heard it from children or teenagers).

 

Two good books on the history of letter-forms (check Amazon.com or eBay.com or johnnealbooks.com which is thee site of a handwriting/calligraphy books/supplies seller) --

 

EXPLICATIO FORMARUM LITTERARUM by Rutherford Aris (the absolute best -- and in English, not in Latin, despite the title

 

and

 

WRITTEN LETTERS: 33 ALPHABETS FOR CALLIGRAPHERS by Jacqueline Svaren (an unusual calligraphy/handwriting guidebook that includes a detailed history of the many writing styles shown in its pages).

 

You should also note the abundant handwriting-history material in the oft-mentioned book WRITE NOW by Barbara Getty and Inga Dubay: although this is a handwriting improvement textbook for adults, most of the exercises are illustrated paragraphs about the history of our handwriting. Therefore, by doing the exercises in WRITE NOW (or even simply reading the exercises) from beginning to end of the book, one can learn handwriting's history from early times to the present.

[Glaurung]

But why is it in grammar, rather than in orthography, that Czech schoolteachers define these rules?

 

You are correct, I made a fool of myself, I should have said orthography. I am no linguist, just a polyglot! FYI, here is the set of rules describing upper/lower case letters writing in Czech: http://www.pravidla.cz/vice/psani-velkych-pismen/?kapitola=8 (in Czech)

 

I did not realize that the designer of Comenius was working for the government.

 

She is selling the concept to government which will (or not) implement it in all public (99% or so?) elementary schools in the Czech Republic eventually. If that happens, looped cursive will die a quick death there.

[KateGladstone]

Thans, Glaurung, for the orthographic rules on Czech capitalization.

 

About the cursive style that you prefer -- the looped cursive that you grew up on -- I have some questions:

 

/1/

Was that style (the looped cursive style that you prefer) also imposed originally by the government for nationwide use in schools?

 

/2/

If so, when was that done -- whom did the government pay to develop and publicize and impose the looped cursive -- and what style did the looped cursive replace? (For instance, did it replace an Italic cursive style? Or did it replace a Blackletter-derived cursive, which was once widely known and used in central Europe? What did the Czech schools use immediately before the introduction -- by whatever means -- of the looped cursive?)

 

/3/

Since I do not know the answers to those questions -- and probably you do not know them either -- suppose that you discovered (when you investigated the matter) that the looped cursive had been imposed by a process exactly similar to the process which you condemn now for Comenia. In other words, suppose it was shown that Czech schools had all adopted looped cursive, at some precise date 100 or 200 years ago, under government command and under the influence of one person (a "one-man show" or "one-woman show," as you say) whom the government had paid to do this. Suppose that this was known and proven -- would it affect how you regard the looped cursive?

Edited July 27, 2010 by KateGladstone

[caliken]

I can certainly see the advantages of a sometimes joined/sometimes not joined italic, which I believe has been defined here as cursive italic. Could somebody post an example of the style being discussed in this thread in actual use? I don't care what it is--abecedarian sentences are fine. I'd just like to get a look at it written by a real person with a real pen. Thanks!

WendyNC,

 

Here's a small example of Italic Cursive as requested. Formal Italic is much the same, but a bit more ornate and with no joins.

 

http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd289/caliken_2007/ThisItalicHand4.jpg

 

caliken

Edited July 27, 2010 by caliken

[Johnny Appleseed]

One small point on the question of capitalization as a grammatical vs punctuation.

 

In English, and it appears to be in Czech, capitalization is mainly a matter of punctuation - it marks the beginning of sentances and is an indicator of certain conventions of formal names, but does not indicate actual parts of speach.

 

I would argue that in some languages - German being the most notable example - capitalization has a grammatical role, in that all nouns are capitalized. Failure to capitalize a noun could cause a reader to be unsure of just what part of speach was being used, and could lead to grammatical confusion. In English, the failure to capitalize a prope noun would not cause the same sort of confusion (though failure to capitalize the lead word in a sentance might).

 

Technically this is an orthographic issue, rather than a grammatical one, as you can write German in all-caps and it will still be understandable. However, in that case the orthographic rules take on a more significant grammatical function.

 

None of which has any bearing on italic vs looped cursive.

 

John

[caliken]

Unfortunately typefaces and handwriting styles have limited ability to be copyrighted - in the case of typefaces, none. You can't copyright an actual typeface. You can trademark a name, like Palatino, and you have copyright protection for actual font software against unauthorized copying of the software, but the actual typefaces itself cannot be copyrighted (anyone can print out the latest font, scan it into a fontmaker program, set auto kerning and sell it under their own name - and they frequently do). I believe the same is true for a handwriting style- the instruction book that teaches how to make a particular handwriting style can be protected, but not the hand itself. A specific artwork may be protected against unauthorized copying, but the style itself cannot be protected (so long as it is another person that does the calligraphy). So I am not sure that copyright protection would apply even if it went back 500 years.

 

John

John,

 

Thanks for this very informative post.

 

caliken

Edited July 27, 2010 by caliken

[WendyNC]

I can certainly see the advantages of a sometimes joined/sometimes not joined italic, which I believe has been defined here as cursive italic. Could somebody post an example of the style being discussed in this thread in actual use? I don't care what it is--abecedarian sentences are fine. I'd just like to get a look at it written by a real person with a real pen. Thanks!

WendyNC,

 

Here's a small example of Italic Cursive as requested. Formal Italic is much the same, but a bit more ornate and with no joins.

 

http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd289/caliken_2007/ThisItalicHand4.jpg

 

caliken

 

caliken, thank you for that. Do all the joins come from moving along without lifting the pen, or do some (or most?) of them just appear that way because the right-hand "tails" of some letters end up touching the letters to the right of them when the next letter is written? (I've wanted to ask this one for a long time.)

[Zenas]

I weep because I love cursive, but, italic isn't a bad thing either

The Handwriting without Tears is the UGLIEST form of writing I have EVER seen in my life!

 

Yes -- by the way, the program's founder claims to have spent seven years in art school. She says that this proves her letters (and her program's other similarly graceless illustrations) are beautiful -- but she also says that this cannot matter, as (in her view) beauty should not matter for handwriting, and neither should speed.

 

Her textbooks for children and teachers (and the training-workshops that she and her staff give, to certify teachers and others as "certified handwriting specialists" who may guide others in using the books) also require learning odd notions of handwriting history. One is taught, for example (in the books and in the workshops) that absolutely all handwriting was vertical until the 17th century when [she says] the invention of the quill pen made it physically impossible to produce vertical letters! [!!!???!!!?!?!?!?]

 

When I speak with individuals or groups that have had HWTears training -- or with children coming to me after failure with that program -- I always specifically correct this matter, and show them evidence to the contrary: slanted writing done before the quill-pen era, and vertical writing done with quill pens. The children hate that they've obviously been lied to -- the adults hate me for pointing out the lie: and I have literally been told by HWTears-using teachers: "How DARE this [evidence I bring] be right?!" or "It can't have existed, because this is not what my training course said." (Ask me sometime what the HWTears founder said, when I confronted her on the matter.)

 

HWTears is an increasingly promoted program that a lot of schools/districts/teachers/occupational therapists in the USA are buying into -- as one result, there have been schools that /a/ asked me to give my handwriting class (often after disappointment with HWTears or other programs), that /b/ offered large sums, BUT that cautioned me that during my presentation I must not say, do, or recommend anything that would conflict with their previous or still-existing program (very often it was HWTears) on the grounds that many/most/all of their teachers and occupational therapists [OTs] had previously taken HWTears certification training, and that I therefore "needed to be supportive of this" because those teachers and OTs were very proud of their certification and needed to "feel validated" and "not to have their sensitivities hurt." I do not, of course, accept job-offers (or money) from such folks, no matter how hard they beg. Why can't the fountain pen community start its *own* outreach to teachers, for programs which do not lie and which are not ugly? (Note that I say "programs" -- because more styles than just my own personal favorite deserve a place in this effort. I would like to see the pen community out there teaching, and "certifying" if need be, in more than one *competently* designed and *accurately* taught mode of writing. Does the pen community really have so few expert handwriters and teachers -- certainly better handwriters and better-informed teachers than the designer of HWTears -- that we cannot get good handwriting taught in whatever form? (HWTears started as a one-woman organization, too. Can't we get one or two people to start our own handwriting crusade, perhaps with an Italic wing and a cursive wing headed by devotees of the respective forms of writing?)

You MUST be a wonderful handwriting repair-lady I agree with you 110%! The crusade with and Italic wing and a Cursive wing sounds perfect! Cursive and Ialic fit hand-in-hand.

 

Indeed!

[KateGladstone]

Well, Zenas or anyone who wants to talk with me and figure out how we can found the "crusade" I suggest, send me a personal message including your phone-number (or just phone me: you'll find my phone-number on my web-site -- http://www.HandwritingThatWorks.com ).

[caliken]

Do all the joins come from moving along without lifting the pen, or do some (or most?) of them just appear that way because the right-hand "tails" of some letters end up touching the letters to the right of them when the next letter is written? (I've wanted to ask this one for a long time.)

 

Formal Italic is written comparatively slowly with constant pen lifts, as the letters are not joined. As the lettering changes to Italic Cursive handwriting, it speeds up and ligatures occur naturally as it's much faster to keep the nib on the paper as much as possible. The degree to which this happens, varies from person to person and you're right - "some of them just appear that way because the right-hand "tails" of some letters end up touching the letters to the right of them when the next letter is written." If written with confidence, it's impossible to tell where the pen was lifted, as the ligatures and letters will link up in exactly the same way, even at speed.

 

There are two schools of thought regarding ligatures. There are those who lay down strict laws stating which letters can be joined and which can't. The problem here, is that these rules change, depending on which book you read!

 

The second group, (of which I'm a member) advocate a more instinctive approach. I (we) feel that it's much better to let ligatures happen naturally. Italic Cursive writing should flow easily, evenly and naturally across the page, and this is difficult to achieve if you're constantly trying to remember which letters can and can't be joined!

 

Even at speed, your mind tells you which joins are inadvisable, either for comfort or speed. There are enough "rules" in this business without further complication IMO.

 

caliken

Edited July 28, 2010 by caliken

[WendyNC]

Thanks so much for that detailed explanation, caliken. It's precisely what I wanted to know.

[KateGladstone]

Re:

 

IThe Handwriting without Tears is the UGLIEST form of writing I have EVER seen in my life!

 

And these days, the HWTears people are telling people (in their teacher-training and publicity)

that HWTears has no loops in its cursive alphabet (though it has 18)

and that it has no letter-shape changes between its print-writing stage and its cursive change (though it has 14).

 

People have been asked to leave HWTears training workshops for asking why the company is mis-describing *its* *own* program.

 

This is part of what I mean by unethical behavior on the part of a publisher of handwriting materials/training-courses.

(There is more, but I will spare the tender sensibilities of other FPN members unless someone is actually interested and cares to know.

FPN members -- do you know how, or IF, your child is learning to write?)

Edited July 31, 2010 by KateGladstone