Meddelelser: 27
Sprog: English
Alciona (Vise profilen) 3. okt. 2010 21.41.19
Genjix:No one writes huge amounts of text in cursive. If you're making fast notes then scrawl or shorthand will do- and they are for yourself anyway. Otherwise why not try to make it legible for the rest of the world? Isn't that what Esperanto is?I write huge amounts in cursive. Whether it's preparatory work for my thesis, class planning or letters I always write in cursive script. I do, however, try my best to make it readable. However, letters aren't just about readability; they're about the joy of receiving a missive on paper instead of email and of seeing a person's personality come through in hand-written ink. Cursive script is simply part of that joy.
If someone were to tell me that they couldn't read cursive I'd simply type letters to them. It would be quicker than block printing and would remove any problems of readability. However, I'd feel some disappointment at it taking away some of the individuality and artistry of letter-writing.
Whether cursive is on the way out in general or not I can't say. I'd have to talk to my secondary and primary school teacher friends to find out if it is still being taught. What I can say is my tertiary level students love reading good penmanship, but they're design students so probably that way inclined anyway.
erinja (Vise profilen) 4. okt. 2010 01.22.52
I consider the reading of cursive script to be a basic skill.
As a small digression, when I read the book "Lingvo kaj vivo" (essays on the Esperanto language and its development, published in 1969) I noticed that in several cases, Esperanto words were compared with their foreign language equivalents. Languages written in Latin script (like English and French) were written according to their usual orthography. Russian was transliterated, therefore the author was assuming that the book's readers cannot read cyrillic. Interestingly, Greek words were written in the usual Greek alphabet. The author was assuming that his readers could read the Greek alphabet well enough that the Greek words need not be transliterated.
I believe that at the time the book was written, it was assumed that an educated European (assuming the main target audience of the book was European, in spite of Esperanto's worldwide nature) would be able to read the Greek alphabet.
I personally feel that an educated person should learn to read at least one alphabet in addition to their native alphabet - Greek and Cyrillic are easy choices for Latin-alphabet natives. If you can't even read cursive script of your native tongue, what hope do you have of reading a foreign alphabet? What about Arabic, which is inherently "cursivey"? To me, fluent reading of cursive is the first step in a person's education about the world's alphabets.
LyzTyphone (Vise profilen) 4. okt. 2010 03.25.45
Shanemk:Thanks everyone for helping. And I took the advice and scanned some of my cursive. I left out the gx on accident, but the g is still there so it's fine for this purpose.I love it! Thank you! Hardly anything need I argue for the legibility, your script totally speaks for it self on that topic! Really, even the Ĥ, which is often regarded as the ugliest looks so poised with its individuality.
I would like to know your opinion on capital ĉapiletaj letters. How do you deal with their diacritics positioned sometimes maybe above the ascender?
Genjix:Please don't write cursive. I'm a native speaker from the UK and I cannot read cursive. It is very hard for me since I wasn't taught at school and never cared to learn.
It's one of those archaic things that will likely disappear in the future. Use block printing.
Yet I believe the technology should not develop to kill the humanistic script, but to help remake it. Yes we can have the Helvetica or Bauhaus Univers, but it doesn't mean we can't have Palmer Cursive reincarnated into a digital type. The most recent innovation of randomizing type can be the hope for us writing humanist.
Slightly off topic, I know a guy in Japan (He is also a Lernu member) who keeps using writing brush for all the daily writing! Penmanship should not be dying.
ceigered (Vise profilen) 4. okt. 2010 07.58.06
Genjix:No one writes huge amounts of text in cursive. If you're making fast notes then scrawl or shorthand will do- and they are for yourself anyway. Otherwise why not try to make it legible for the rest of the world? Isn't that what Esperanto is?No one writes huge amounts of text on the internet in cursive, but all my marks I get back from tutors at university, which can be up to a page long, are done in cursive. Furthermore, computers aren't accessible to everyone every second of the day, so it makes being able to understand cursive all that more critical if say a piece of text had to be done in writing because of a power outage etc. It's here to stay, until the day human hands are rendered useless, we get computers in built into our very bodies that never fail, or similar.
Cursive dead
The biggest problems with reading cursive are often that people have gone at an early age, likely at school, "I can't read cursive" and just not bothered to open their minds ot the subject for the rest of their lives - like 3-year younger version of myself.
Anyway, if that doesn't help convince anyone, and tl;dr, then:
Learn how to read cursive/handwriting and stave off Alzheimer's for longer. (since adjusting to new handwriting styles is the equivalent of doing one of those minigame thingies on the Nintendo DS that they make golden oldies do in nursing homes).
(on the terms of "legible for everyone else", well, we're not all computers are we?
) 
Miland (Vise profilen) 4. okt. 2010 16.20.23
Shanemk:..I.. scanned some of my cursive..Your handwriting is excellent. A lot better than mine! My handwriting is often barely legible unless I slow down and make a conscious effort to write neatly.
Shanemk (Vise profilen) 5. okt. 2010 00.40.34
And I was informed today I write in D'Nealian, not Palmer, I never realized.
Thanks everyone for replying and commenting. I suppose the truest test will be to just start sending postcards. I really don't want to print out letters but if I must I will.
While I'm typing this, what is the word for "ya'll" or "you-all" in Eo? Vioj?
erinja (Vise profilen) 5. okt. 2010 01.16.37
The word "vi" is used for both singular and plural (like "you" in the north). So there's no separate word for "plural you", and no word for "y'all" except "vi".
In cases where emphasis is needed, you could say "vi ĉiuj" (lit. you all, all of you)
Genjix (Vise profilen) 5. okt. 2010 13.12.13
erinja:I consider the reading of cursive script to be a basic skill.Not everyone is a language geek like you. I can read Arabic and Cyrillic script but it is a useless skill that I learnt for fun in those countries. Never has it been useful. Your opinion is incredibly narrow minded. Realise that some people don't care about languages.
...
I personally feel that an educated person should learn to read at least one alphabet in addition to their native alphabet
After all we live in a technological science based society. It's far more important that people possess a basic scientific understanding. Not everyone does.
Mathematical knowledge has been incredibly useful in my life so why don't others have one. People use computers everyday, so why don't they have basic programming knowledge to automate their life and realise online threats. People lack basic geography knowledge, don't keep up with the news, aren't conscious of my pet hobby X, yada yada... But I don't fault them for it.
All this talk about 'the art of cursive' or beautiful writing- I couldn't care less. In my line of work (games design) over 5 years in ~40 countries I've never had a need to write or understand cursive. It's your own hobby, but most of the world doesn't care. Read that link I posted on the 1st page and read the comments- common sentiments from common people about cursive.
Genjix (Vise profilen) 5. okt. 2010 13.14.54
erinja:You must be from the south!This is slightly irritating- why Esperanto has singular/plural you and then gendered singular he/she, and non-gendered plural them. It's highly inconsistent.
The word "vi" is used for both singular and plural (like "you" in the north). So there's no separate word for "plural you", and no word for "y'all" except "vi".
In cases where emphasis is needed, you could say "vi ĉiuj" (lit. you all, all of you)
In Persian they have plural you and non-gendered he/she which seems to be the best most logical scheme
Donniedillon (Vise profilen) 5. okt. 2010 14.00.56
In my eyes learning block script but not cursive would be like learning fractions but not percentages. They are both different ways to express the same thing so it doesn't make sense to say that one is better than the other or that one is "dead" and no longer useful.