If You Thought Your Handwriting Was Hard To Read, Russian Cursive Writing Examples From This Thread Will Prove You Wrong
This one is for our dear primary teachers who refused to admit we would all be typing soon, and that our unreadable handwriting wasn’t that big of a deal. If the doctor’s handwriting wasn’t proof enough that it could always be worse, please meet Russian cursive.
When the Twitter user Christian shared a couple of images with the caption “Losing my mind after learning about Russian cursive,” we initially thought it’s either a fragment from the Voynich manuscript, aka hand-written scribble that hasn’t been unraveled yet, or someone was trying to get a brand new ballpoint pen flowing.
But as soon as Twitter users started sharing their own examples of Russian handwriting, we realized this is as serious as it gets. So when someone ever mentions your cursive again, tell ‘em there’s a thing like a doctor’s notice in Russian. And trust me, you’re good.
Christian tweeted that he’d lost his mind over how crazy Russian cursive is, and the post went viral
Image credits: beanerbastard
People joined the thread and posted more baffling examples of handwriting in Russian
Image credits: slumberalien
Image credits: slumberalien
If writing cursive wasn’t hard enough already, Russian cursive takes it to a whole new level.
But Russians still write by hand a lot. Natasha Alexandrova, a Russian language teacher and the author of Russian Step By Step, claims that “learning cursive writing gives you an insight into the Russian way of doing it.”
She explains: “Any Russian who went to school will gladly reminisce about the school years when they used Propisi and learned how to hand-write correctly (some have fond memories while others remember rewriting those letters a million times until they were perfect), but everyone had that experience.”
Image credits: poppy_haze
Image credits: ellasrhapsody
Someone pointed out that Trump’s signature has an uncanny resemblance to Russian cursive
Image credits: RageofBaltimore
Apparently, writing by hand is part of the growing process in Russian culture and learning it marks an important milestone in a child’s education and development.
It turns out, writing by hand is so widely popular in Russia that people still write letters, postcards, post-its, notes to family and friends, recipes, contact information, addresses, and shopping lists.
Russian cursive makes this doctor’s notice super baffling
Image credits: yung_pissbaby
More people shared their handwriting
Image credits: meviosblom
Image credits: AlchemistLily
If you plan to visit Russia and think that print would suffice, you may be wrong. Natasha suggests that “you will encounter handwritten signs and even names of stores, stations, and other important things printed in fonts that mimic the handwriting.”
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Medieval English did the same thing, as did most other cursive scripts in the pre-industrial age. Because natural quill pens only work effectively on the down stroke the cursive script tends to emphasise the vertical letters. In Med English they result in words that represent a series of very densely spaced serrations- emphasising the vertical 'timing' of the word. The problem is, you need a working knowledge of language to actually understand the word because a word made up of 5 or 6 minims could represent literally thousands of words . This wasn't so much of a problem in the medieval period as most texts were legal or religious and therefore followed very set patterns. If you know what the document is about, you can usually infer the word from its context. I always found medieval Latin a lot easier to transcribe than some 19th and 20th century cursives because of this. The UK National Archives runs free online courses in paleography if you're interested in finding out more.
mimi numinum niuium minimi munium nimium uini muniminum imminui uiui minimum uolunt- the most famous example of this. Minims_pal...0d60fa.jpg
Is that the phrase that's supposed to mean "the smallest mimes of the gods of snow do not wish at all in their life that the great duty of the defenses of the wine be diminished" or something like that?
I really don't understand how anyone could downvote such an interesting comment. I gave you my like! :)
Um, I‘m an American who took Russian language in college years ago, so have written in Cyrillic, both printing and cursive. Since I wanted to get a decent grade I was careful to write legibly. But. But! You really do not want to see my handwriting in my own language. Though it was good while I was learning it in elementary school, once I got to high school and college, and had several instructors who spoke fast, wrote fast, and erased even faster during lectures, my efforts to write as much down in my lecture notes as I could before they disappeared (pre-computers, so nowhere for instructors to upload PowerPoint presentations) meant my handwriting became a scrawl that even I sometimes couldn’t read. It hasn’t improved since. So I tend to go easy on people whose handwriting isn’t perfect. Include doctors in that now. Though you might still get a handwritten scrip once in a while, they’re more likely to enter them online, where they’re printed legibly (as long as the doc can spell!).
It happened to me kind of the same. My handwriting is, without excuses, just as bad as a drunken doctor's script. But when I stated studying japanese, I really put a lot of effort on the properly writing of the kana and kanji, I'd write them so neat and smooth even my teacher would be constantly complementing me on it and wondering why my regular handwriting was do awful. Of course, nobody wanna write shitty kanji! They're hard enough when legible, now Imagen them written in a crooked and messy way! Haha
As a russian I can't read some of these handwritings either )
Olga Vertinskaya ?
IKR! But some of the ones that say "worst handwriting ever" are actually better than my own :D
Medieval English did the same thing, as did most other cursive scripts in the pre-industrial age. Because natural quill pens only work effectively on the down stroke the cursive script tends to emphasise the vertical letters. In Med English they result in words that represent a series of very densely spaced serrations- emphasising the vertical 'timing' of the word. The problem is, you need a working knowledge of language to actually understand the word because a word made up of 5 or 6 minims could represent literally thousands of words . This wasn't so much of a problem in the medieval period as most texts were legal or religious and therefore followed very set patterns. If you know what the document is about, you can usually infer the word from its context. I always found medieval Latin a lot easier to transcribe than some 19th and 20th century cursives because of this. The UK National Archives runs free online courses in paleography if you're interested in finding out more.
mimi numinum niuium minimi munium nimium uini muniminum imminui uiui minimum uolunt- the most famous example of this. Minims_pal...0d60fa.jpg
Is that the phrase that's supposed to mean "the smallest mimes of the gods of snow do not wish at all in their life that the great duty of the defenses of the wine be diminished" or something like that?
I really don't understand how anyone could downvote such an interesting comment. I gave you my like! :)
Um, I‘m an American who took Russian language in college years ago, so have written in Cyrillic, both printing and cursive. Since I wanted to get a decent grade I was careful to write legibly. But. But! You really do not want to see my handwriting in my own language. Though it was good while I was learning it in elementary school, once I got to high school and college, and had several instructors who spoke fast, wrote fast, and erased even faster during lectures, my efforts to write as much down in my lecture notes as I could before they disappeared (pre-computers, so nowhere for instructors to upload PowerPoint presentations) meant my handwriting became a scrawl that even I sometimes couldn’t read. It hasn’t improved since. So I tend to go easy on people whose handwriting isn’t perfect. Include doctors in that now. Though you might still get a handwritten scrip once in a while, they’re more likely to enter them online, where they’re printed legibly (as long as the doc can spell!).
It happened to me kind of the same. My handwriting is, without excuses, just as bad as a drunken doctor's script. But when I stated studying japanese, I really put a lot of effort on the properly writing of the kana and kanji, I'd write them so neat and smooth even my teacher would be constantly complementing me on it and wondering why my regular handwriting was do awful. Of course, nobody wanna write shitty kanji! They're hard enough when legible, now Imagen them written in a crooked and messy way! Haha
As a russian I can't read some of these handwritings either )
Olga Vertinskaya ?
IKR! But some of the ones that say "worst handwriting ever" are actually better than my own :D