Regional handwriting variation

Although people in many parts of the world share common alphabets and numeral systems (versions of the Latin writing system are used throughout the Americas, Australia, and much of Europe and Africa; the Arabic numerals are nearly universal), styles of handwritten letterforms vary between individuals, and sometimes also vary systematically between regions.

This form is sometimes used to prevent people from fraudulently changing a three into an eight (but introduces the potential for confusion with ezh or with cursive Z).

The numeral 4: Some people leave the top "open": all the lines are either vertical or horizontal, as in a seven-segment display.

The numeral 7: The traditional form found in copperplate penmanship begins with a serif at the upper left and has a wavy horizontal stroke (like a swash).

In East Asian countries (Korea, China and Japan), this numeral is commonly written with such a serif, but no swash and no crossbar through the middle.

A short horizontal bar is sometimes used to cross the vertical in the middle, to distinguish the seven from a numeral one, especially in cultures (such as French) that write 1 with a very long upstroke.

Other people write this numeral in one continuous motion, which makes it look like two tear drops or a sideways lemniscate.

In China, southern Taiwan, and South Korea, the nine is sometimes written with the loop to the right of the stick, resembling a capital P or Greek lowercase letter ρ.

The letter q, which is only used in foreign words and is extremely rare, is then disambiguated from g by adding a serif (often undulated) extending to the right from the bottom tip of the descender.

The lowercase letter p: The French way of writing this character has a half-way ascender as the vertical extension of the descender, which also does not complete the bowl at the bottom.

In early Finnish writing, the curve to the bottom was omitted, thus the resulting letter resembled an n with a descender (like ꞃ).

In parts of Europe such as Italy, Germany and Spain, it is commonly written with a short horizontal crossbar added through the middle.

The slant of a sample of writing is a feature of many regional handwriting variations, and also a reflection of the copybook that is taught.