Cursive

It varies in functionality and modern-day usage across languages and regions; being used both publicly in artistic and formal documents as well as in private communication.

The cursive method is used with many alphabets due to infrequent pen lifting and beliefs that it increases writing speed.

Cursive is a style of penmanship in which the symbols of the language are written in a conjoined, or flowing, manner, generally for the purpose of making writing faster.

The origins of the cursive method are associated with the practical advantages of writing speed and infrequent pen-lifting to accommodate the limitations of the quill.

The term cursive derives from Middle French cursif from Medieval Latin cursivus, which literally means 'running'.

Also, the horizontal supporting bar on each letter (matra) runs continuously through the entire word, unlike in standard handwriting.

Cursive handwriting developed into something approximating its current form from the 17th century, but its use was neither uniform, nor standardized either in England itself or elsewhere in the British Empire.

In the English colonies of the early 17th century, most of the letters are clearly separated in the handwriting of William Bradford, though a few were joined as in a cursive hand.

In England itself, Edward Cocker had begun to introduce a version of the French ronde style, which was then further developed and popularized throughout the British Empire in the 17th and 18th centuries as round hand by John Ayers and William Banson.

While many schools in the United Kingdom are opting to teach continuous cursive throughout the year groups, often starting in Reception, critics have argued that conjoined writing styles leave many children struggling with the high level of gross and fine motor coordination required.

However, a few days later, Timothy Matlack professionally re-wrote the presentation copy of the Declaration in a fully joined, cursive hand.

Eighty-seven years later, in the middle of the 19th century, Abraham Lincoln drafted the Gettysburg Address in a cursive hand that would not look out of place today.

This was called a "fair hand", meaning it looked good, and firms trained all their clerks to write in exactly the same script.

Although women's handwriting had noticeably different particulars from men's[further explanation needed], the general forms were not prone to rapid change.

In the 21st century, some of the surviving cursive writing styles are Spencerian, Palmer Method, D'Nealian, and Zaner-Bloser script.

[16] One of the earliest forms of new technology that caused the decline of handwriting was the invention of the ballpoint pen, patented in 1888 by John Loud.

Two brothers, László and György Bíró, further developed the ballpoint pen by changing the design and using different ink that dried quickly.

Unlike older pen designs, this new invention guaranteed that the ink would not smudge and did not require such careful penmanship.

Over time, the emphasis on using cursive declined slowly,[quantify] and was later impacted by other technologies such as the phone, computer, and keyboard.

[37] The German National Primary Schoolteachers' Union has proposed replacing all three with Grundschrift, a simplified form of non-cursive handwriting adopted by Hamburg schools.

Due to the promotion of the Balbodh variant of Devanagari as the standard writing system for Marathi, Modi largely fell out of use by the mid-20th century.

[40] A distinctive feature of this script is that the head stroke is written before the letters, in order to produce a "ruled page" for writing in lines.

It has several characteristics that facilitate writing so that moving from one character to the next minimises lifting the pen from the paper for dipping in ink.