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= Penmanship =
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Introduction
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Penmanship is the technique of writing with the hand using a writing
instrument. Today, this is most commonly done with a pen, or pencil,
but throughout history has included many different implements. The
various generic and formal historical styles of writing are called
"hands" while an individual's style of penmanship is referred to as
"handwriting".
Origins
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The earliest example of systematic writing is the Sumerian
pictographic system found on clay tablets, which eventually developed
around 3200 BC into a modified version called cuneiform which was
impressed on wet clay with a sharpened reed. This form of writing
eventually evolved into an ideographic system (where a sign represents
an idea) and then to a syllabic system (where a sign represents a
syllable). Developing around the same time, the Egyptian system of
hieroglyphics also began as a pictographic script and evolved into a
system of syllabic writing. Two cursive scripts were eventually
created, hieratic, shortly after hieroglyphs were invented, and
demotic (Egyptian) in the seventh century BC. Scribes wrote these
scripts usually on papyrus, with ink on a reed pen.
The first known alphabetical system came from the Phoenicians, who
developed a vowel-less system of 22 letters around the eleventh
century BC. The Greeks eventually adapted the Phoenician alphabet
around the eighth century BC. Adding vowels to the alphabet, dropping
some consonants and altering the order, the Ancient Greeks developed a
script which included only what we know of as capital Greek letters.
The lowercase letters of Classical Greek were a later invention of the
Middle Ages. The Phoenician alphabet also influenced the Hebrew and
Aramaic scripts, which follow a vowel-less system. One Hebrew script
was only used for religious literature and by a small community of
Samaritans up until the sixth century BC. Aramaic was the official
script of the Babylonian, Assyrian and Persian empires and 'Square
Hebrew' (the script now used in Israel) developed from Aramaic around
the third century AD.
Handwriting based on Latin script
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The Romans in Southern Italy eventually adopted the Greek alphabet as
modified by the Etruscans to develop Latin writing. Like the Greeks,
the Romans employed stone, metal, clay, and papyrus as writing
surfaces. Handwriting styles which were used to produce manuscripts
included square capitals, rustic capitals, uncials, and half-uncials.
Square capitals were employed for more-formal texts based on stone
inscriptional letters, while rustic capitals freer, compressed, and
efficient. Uncials were rounded capitals (majuscules) that originally
were developed by the Greeks in the third century BC, but became
popular in Latin manuscripts by the fourth century AD. Roman cursive
or informal handwriting started out as a derivative of the capital
letters, though the tendency to write quickly and efficiently made the
letters less precise. Half-uncials (minuscules) were lowercase
letters, which eventually became the national hand of Ireland. Other
combinations of half-uncial and cursive handwriting developed
throughout Europe, including Visigothic, and Merovingian.
At the end of the eighth century, Charlemagne decreed that all
writings in his empire were to be written in a standard handwriting,
which came to be known as Carolingian minuscule. Alcuin of York was
commissioned by Charlemagne to create this new handwriting, which he
did in collaboration with other scribes and based on the tradition of
other Roman handwriting. Carolingian minuscule was used to produce
many of the manuscripts from monasteries until the eleventh century
and most lower-case letters of today's European scripts derive from
it.
Gothic or black-letter script, evolved from Carolingian, became the
dominant handwriting from the twelfth century until the Italian
Renaissance (1400-1600 AD). This script was not as clear as the
Carolingian, but instead was narrower, darker, and denser. Because of
this, the dot above the 'i' was added in order to differentiate it
from the similar pen strokes of the 'n', 'm', and 'u'. Also, the
letter 'u' was created as separate from the 'v', which had previously
been used for both sounds. Part of the reason for such compact
handwriting was to save space, since parchment was expensive. Gothic
script, being the writing style of scribes in Germany when Gutenberg
invented movable type, became the model for the first typeface.
Another variation of Carolingian minuscule was created by the Italian
humanists in the fifteenth century, called by them 'littera antiqua'
and now called humanist minuscule. This was a combination of Roman
capitals and the rounded version of Carolingian minuscule. A cursive
form eventually developed, and it became increasingly slanted due to
the quickness with which it could be written. This manuscript
handwriting, called cursive humanistic, became known as the typeface
Italic used throughout Europe.
Copperplate engraving influenced handwriting as it allowed penmanship
copybooks to be more widely printed. Copybooks first appeared in
Italy around the sixteenth century; the earliest writing manuals were
published by Sigismondo Fanti and Ludovico degli Arrighi. Other
manuals were produced by Dutch and French writing masters later in the
century, including Pierre Hamon. However, copybooks only became
commonplace in England with the invention of copperplate engraving.
Engraving could better produce the flourishes in handwritten script,
which helped penmanship masters to produce beautiful examples for
students. Some of these early penmanship manuals included those of
Edward Cocker, John Seddon, and John Ayer. By the eighteenth century,
schools were established to teach penmanship techniques from master
penmen, especially in England and the United States. Penmanship became
part of the curriculum in American schools by the early 1900s, rather
than just reserved for specialty schools teaching adults penmanship as
a professional skill. Several different penmanship methods have been
developed and published, including Spencerian, Getty-Dubay, Barchowsky
Fluent Handwriting, Icelandic (Italic), Zaner-Bloser, and D’Nealian
methods among others used in American education.
Handwriting based on Chinese script
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Writing systems developed in East Asia include Chinese and Japanese
writing systems. Chinese characters represent whole morphemes rather
than individual sounds, and consequently are visually far more complex
than European scripts; in some cases their pictographic origins are
still visible. The earliest form of Chinese was written on bones and
shells (called Jiaguwen) in the fourteenth century BC. Other writing
surfaces used during this time included bronze, stone, jade, pottery,
and clay, which became more popular after the twelfth century BC.
Greater Seal script (Dazhuan) flourished during 1100 BC and 700 BC and
appeared mainly in bronze vessels. Lesser Seal script (Xiaozhuan) is
the precursor of modern complex Chinese script, which is more stylized
than the Greater Seal.
Chinese handwriting is considered an art, more so than illuminated
manuscripts in Western culture. Calligraphy is widely practiced in
China, which employs scripts such as Kaishu (standard), Xingshu
(semi-cursive), and Caoshu (cursive). Chinese calligraphy is meant to
represent the artistic personality in a way western calligraphy
cannot, and therefore penmanship is valued higher than in any other
nation. Standard Script (Kaishu) is main traditional script used
today.
Japanese writing evolved from Chinese script and Chinese characters,
called kanji, or ideograms, were adopted to represent Japanese words
and grammar. Kanji were simplified to create two other scripts, called
hiragana and katakana. Hiragana is the more widely used script in
Japan today, while katakana, meant for formal documents originally, is
used similarly to italics in alphabetic scripts.
Books used in North America
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Platt Rogers Spencer is known as the "Father of American Penmanship".
His writing system was first published in 1848, in his book 'Spencer
and Rice's System of Business and Ladies' Penmanship'. The most
popular Spencerian manual was 'The Spencerian Key to Practical
Penmanship', published by his sons in 1866. This "Spencerian Method"
Ornamental Style was taught in American schools until the mid-1920s,
and has seen a resurgence in recent years through charter schools and
home schooling using revised Spencerian books and methods produced by
former IAMPETH president Michael Sull (born 1946).
George A. Gaskell (1845-1886), a student of Spencer, authored two
popular books on penmanship, 'Gaskell's Complete Compendium of Elegant
Writing' and 'The Penman's Hand-Book' (1883). Louis Henry Hausam
published the "New Education in Penmanship" in 1908, called "the
greatest work of the kind ever published."
Many copybooks were produced in North America at the start of the 20th
century, mostly for Business Style penmanship (a simplified form of
Ornamental Style). These included those produced by A. N. Palmer, a
student of Gaskell, who developed the Palmer Method, as reflected in
his 'Palmer's Guide to Business Writing', published in 1894. Also
popular was Zaner-Bloser Method, introduced by Charles Paxton Zaner
(15 February 1864 - 1 December 1918) and Elmer Ward Bloser (6 November
1865 - 1929) of the Zanerian Business College. The A. N. Palmer
Company folded in the early 1980s.
Modern Styles include more than 200 published textbook curricula
including: D'Nealian Method (a derivative of the Palmer Method which
uses a slanted, serifed manuscript form followed by an entirely joined
and looped cursive), Modern Zaner-Bloser which accounts for the
majority of handwriting textbook sales in the US, A Beka, Schaffer,
Peterson, Loops and Groups, McDougal, Steck Vaughn, and many others.
Italic Styles include Getty-Dubay Italic (slightly slanted), Eager,
Portland, Barchowsky Fluent Handwriting, Queensland, etc.
Other copybook styles that are unique and do not fall into any
previous categories are Smithhand, Handwriting without Tears,
Ausgangsschrift, Bob Jones, etc. These may differ greatly from each
other in a variety of ways.
The first made video for correcting messy handwriting especially for
people with ADHD and or dysgraphia was "Anyone Can Improve Their Own
Handwriting" by learning specialist Jason Mark Alster MSc.
Schools in East Asia
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By the nineteenth century, attention was increasingly given to
developing quality penmanship in Eastern schools. Countries that had
a writing system based on logographs and syllabaries placed particular
emphasis on form and quality when learning. These countries, such as
China and Japan, have pictophonetic characters that are difficult to
learn. Chinese children start by learning the most fundamental
characters first and building to the more esoteric ones. Often,
children trace the different strokes in the air with the teacher and
eventually start writing them on paper.
In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, there have been more
efforts to simplify these systems and standardize handwriting. For
example, in China in 1955, in order to respond to illiteracy among
people, the government introduced a Romanized version of Chinese
script, called Pinyin. However, by the 1960s, people rebelled against
the infringement upon traditional Chinese by foreign influences. This
writing reform did not help illiteracy among peasants. Japanese also
has simplified the Chinese characters it uses into scripts called
kana. However kanji are still used in preference over kana in many
contexts, and a large part of children's schooling is learning kanji.
Moreover, Japan has tried to hold on to handwriting as an art form
while not compromising the more modern emphasis on speed and
efficiency. In the early 1940s, handwriting was taught twice, once as
calligraphy in the art section of school curricula, and then again as
a functional skill in the language section. The practical function of
penmanship in Japan did not start to be questioned until the end of
the twentieth century; while typewriters proved more efficient than
penmanship in the modern West, these technologies had a hard time
transferring to Japan, since the thousands of characters involved in
the language made typing unfeasible.
Motor control
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Handwriting requires the motor coordination of multiple joints in the
hand, wrist, elbow, and shoulder to form letters and to arrange them
on the page. Holding the pen and guiding it across paper depends
mostly upon sensory information from skin, joints and muscles of the
hand and this adjusts movement to changes in the friction between pen
and paper. With practice and familiarity, handwriting becomes highly
automated using motor programs stored in motor memory. Compared to
other complex motor skills handwriting is far less dependent on a
moment-to-moment visual guidance.
Research in individuals with complete peripheral deafferentation with
and without vision of their writing hand finds increase of number of
pen touches, increase in number of inversions in velocity, decrease of
mean stroke frequency and longer writing movement duration. The
changes show that cutaneous and proprioceptive feedback play a
critical role in updating the motor memories and internal models that
underlie handwriting. In contrast, sight provides only a secondary
role in adjusting motor commands.
See also
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*Typography - the appearance, arrangement, and style of printed text
Types of writing
* Handwriting, a person's particular style of writing by pen or a
pencil
* Hand (handwriting), in paleography, refers to a distinct generic
style of penmanship
* Block letters - also called printing, is the use of the simple
letters children are taught to write when first learning
* Calligraphy - the art of writing itself, generally more concerned
with aesthetics for decorative effect than normal handwriting.
* Cursive - any style of handwriting written in a flowing (cursive)
manner, which connects many or all of the letters in a word, or the
strokes in a CJK character or other grapheme.
Studies of writing and penmanship
* Chirography - handwriting, its style and character
* Diplomatics - forensic paleography (seeks the provenance of written
documents).
* Graphonomics - is the interdisciplinary scientific study of the
handwriting process and the handwritten product
* Palaeography - the study of script.
Penmanship-related professions
* Letterer - comic book lettering profession.
* Marriage certificates design or calligraphy
* Technical lettering - the process of forming letters, numerals, and
other characters in technical drawing.
* Questioned document examiner - forensic science discipline which
includes handwriting examination
* Penmanship instructor, at a Vocational school
* Wedding invitations design
Other penmanship-related topics
* Handwriting recognition - the ability of a computer to receive and
interpret handwritten input
* Regional handwriting variation
* Signature
External links
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*[
https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,1912419,00.html
Mourning the Death of Handwriting] Article in TIME
*[
https://web.archive.org/web/20080522042306/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,766608,00.html
Handwriting as Character] TIME's 1942 article
*[
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/10/AR2006101001475.html
The Handwriting Is on the Wall; Researchers See a Downside as
Keyboards Replace Pens in Schools]
*[
https://www.history.com/news/a-brief-history-of-penmanship-on-national-handwriting-day
A Brief History of Penmanship] Article from History.com
License
=========
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License URL:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penmanship
